Heat, Danville squad get the best of Ellington, Post 199 Juniors
Edwardsville ends its season with 5-2 loss in state tournament
"If you can beat the heat, you can beat anything," said Ellington, a pitcher for the Edwardsville Post 199 Junior American Legion squad.
Well, not quite anything. Especially making your first start in 15 days and less than 48 hours removed from repetitively squatting 500-plus pounds in preparation for the start of two-a-day football practices.Add the 95-plus-degree heat and humidity for Saturday's Junior Legion State Tournament loser's bracket elimination game against Danville, and Ellington just may want to eat his, albeit poignant, words.
Despite the heat and his extended time off, Ellington went on to pitch what Post 199 coach Brian Clawson described as "one of the best of the year for us. He pitched a heck of a game. He gave us everything he had."
Unfortunately for Post 199 though, the team's offense and defense didn't produce as much. Leading 3-2 in the third inning, Danville tacked on two runs in the fourth and hung on for a 5-2 victory at Centennial Field in Champaign.
Edwardsville finished its season 27-4, reaching the state tournament for the sixth time in Clawson's 15 years. The club also qualified in 1995, '96, '97, '99 and 2004, and won state in '97 and '04.
Ellington, 17, an incoming senior at Edwardsville High, pitched 6 2/3 innings, scattering five runs, just two earned, on nine hits. He struck out six and walked three.
"I wasn't really worried (about the time off)," Ellington said. "My arm was good. It was just the heat. And I've been lifting weights for football, so I was pretty tight. Around the fourth inning it really hit me."
It was a tough luck loss in the truest form.
"He was facing probably the best hitting club we faced this year and he kept us in shooting distance the whole way," Clawson said. "We didn't support him. It didn't play our best game and that's why we went home."
Ellington - who drove up to Champaign Thursday morning with Jake Opel and Colby Highlander after a workout - said his legs and what felt like a "flat pitcher's mound" gave him the most problems.
"The mound just felt really flat," Ellington said. "It was hard finding a good spot and my pitches started staying up. That and my legs were pretty sore, so it was (probably amplified). The day after you lift it's pretty sore, but you really don't feel all of it until two days after."
Danville jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning, but Edwardsville battled back to tie the score with a run in the first and another in the second. Ian Sykes roped a RBI-triple in the first and Nino Smith had a run-scoring single in the second.
But Post 199 would get just two more hits in the final five innings. And Ellington kept plugging away.
"I never try and think about the score," Ellington said. "It's just 0-0, that's the way I always look at it."
While it was a disappointing end to an otherwise successful season, Post 199 was pleased with its advancement. The squad won the District 22 North Division for the third straight and 9th season overall, and won the Fifth Division for the fourth year. Overall, the team has lost more than 9 games just once (2003, 18-12) in the last 15 years.
"Getting there is probably the majority of the (luster) of the trip," Clawson said. "Obviously you want to come back with the trophy, but I told the guys that we represented our team, our program, our families, our community well. It wasn't like we went up there and handed it over."
Ellington echoed his coach.
"Our mentality heading in was get there, win some hardware and come home," he said. "But then we saw the team's we were facing and we realized they're tough and it wasn't going to be that easy.
"(Danville) was good. They could drive everything."
Ellington said the loss just makes he and his teammates hungrier for next summer.
"Definitely," Ellington said. "It's kind of like having a chip on your shoulder - it won't go away."
Kind of like the unwavering heat.
