The American Legion Post 70 19U baseball team has had trouble advancing out of the Southeastern Regional Tournament over the last two years. Post 70 got this tournament started on a good note with a 7-4 win over Sumpter Post 15 on Wednesday morning.

The win advances Post 70 into the winner’s bracket on Thursday.

“I’m very proud of our team’s effort,” said head coach Rush Hixon. “We put a game plan in place and executed it well. We battled the whole game through a few different lead changes and that resilience we showed will be key moving forward in this tournament.”

Reed Jinright got the start for Post 70. Jinright pitched 4.1 innings and allowed four runs, three of which were earned on seven hits, while striking out three batters.

Nathan Light and Dylan Register pitched the remaining 2.2 innings without allowing a run.

Post 70 fell behind early on Wednesday. Post 15 jumped on the board with a run in the second inning.

Post 70 quickly answered when they scored their first run in the third inning when Ryan Tomlin singled to left scoring Gage Herring.

Joey Wozniak tripled to right field to drive in Connor Purvis and Herring in the fourth inning to take a 3-1 lead. Post 15 had their biggest inning of the contest when they scored three runs in the fourth on four hits on their way to taking a 4-3 lead. All three of their runs came with two outs in the inning.

Post 70 answered with three runs of their own in the fifth. Thompson doubled to left to score Logan Thomas, and Wood Jinright singled on a hard ground ball to left to drive in Tomlin. Dylan Register drove in the final run of the inning on a groundout. By inning’s end, Post 70 had a 6-4 lead.

Post 70 picked up an insurance run in the sixth inning when Wozniak scored on a Thompson single to left.

Post 70 finished with 11 hits, led by Tomlin who went 3-4 with two RBI. Herring and Thompson each had two hits.

Post 70 will play Lyon County Post 68 at 3:30 this afternoon.