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TABLES TURN
Pratt beats Chiefs 8-6 in opener
spt Bowman up middle
Great Bends Jace Bowman hits a pitch back up the middle during action Tuesday night at Al Burns Memorial Field. - photo by Mack McClure Great Bend Tribune

Over the weekend, the Great Bend Chiefs beat the Pratt 86ers in the Chiefs Baseball Classic championship. The Chiefs won two of three from Pratt, including 7-6 in walk-off fashion in the championship game Saturday evening at Al Burns Memorial field.
The Chiefs (5-5) didn’t have the same good fortune Tuesday evening against the 86ers at the same locale in the first game of a 19-U American Legion regular-season doubleheader.
The 86ers surged ahead with a five-run first inning and held on in the seventh, where the Chiefs scored a trio of runs but came up short in an 8-6 loss.
The 86ers drew first blood, totaling four hits and capitalizing on four walks to mount its first-inning 5-0 lead. Highlighting the surge was an RBI single by Jake Beecher and a two-run single by B.J. Fox.
Pratt chased losing pitcher Darien Blackwill, who never got out of the first, and was responsible for four of those runs. Matt Marshall came on in relief and was able to keep the Chiefs in the game.
At the plate, Marshall was 3-for-4 and had two runs batted in. He drove in Logan Buehler with a single in the second to make it 5-1. Buehler had earlier reached on a base hit.
In the fourth, the Chiefs’ Sam Hafner walked and later scored on Jace Bowman RBI flyout to cut the margin to 6-2 after Pratt scored a single run to open the inning.
After Pratt extended its lead to 8-3 with two runs in the sixth, the Chiefs wouldn’t go away quietly, scoring three runs in the seventh, capped by Jeff Pike’s two-out, two-run single by the middle to make it 8-6.
But their rally died there.
Each team totaled 10 hits, including four doubles by the Chiefs.
The outcome of the second game was unavailable at presstime.

19-U AMERICAN LEGION
BASEBALL
Tuesday
Al Burns Memorial Field

GAME 1
Pratt 86ers 8,
Great Bend Chiefs 6
                           123 456  7        R H E
Pratt                  500 102  0  —  8 10 0
Great Bend       001 110  3  —  6 10 3
Joe Dorman & Jake Siroky; Darien Blackwill, Matt Marshall (1) & Landon Leuenberger. W — Dohrman. L — Blackwill. 2B — Great Bend 4 (Marshall 2, Mitch Kottas, Leuenberger); Pratt 1 (Siroky).