Legion juniors punch ticket to state second straight year

    For a second straight season, Imperial’s junior Legion baseball team is headed to the state tournament.
    The Imperial ‘Horns sealed their state tourney berth by beating Alma 16-7 in the Class C Area 7 district championship game in Overton Tuesday night.
    It took top-seeded Imperial two games Tuesday to seal their state tournament berth after No. 2 seed Alma won the earlier game, forcing the second contest in the double elimination tournament.
    Coach Bruce Peterson gave high marks to the team.
    “These guys battled back well after a tough loss in the first game,” he said.
    Alma was a good team, he said, but didn’t have the pitching depth Imperial has.
    In the nightcap, Imperial set the tone early by scoring 13 runs in the top of the  first, highlighted by a grand slam homer from Trevor Peterson, who also had a solo homer in the first game.
    In the championship game, Alma was held to just one run in their first at-bat, then added three more in the second, two in the fourth and one in the fifth.
    Imperial’s 13-run first inning was too much for Alma to overcome. Top-seeded Imperial also put one run across in the second and two more in the fourth in the big 16-7 win that ended after five innings.
    Trevor Peterson earned the win, going all five innings for Imperial on the mound in the finale.
    In the opener against Alma earlier Tuesday, Imperial had control of the game until the top of the 6th inning when Alma went on a scoring frenzy, tallying all 11 of their runs off eight hits in the 6th and 7th innings.

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