Hampden Quirk Motor City earned a fourth-place finish in the Junior American Legion Northeast regional tournament at Concord, New Hampshire, over the weekend.
The Maine champions fell to eventual champion Stony Point Rockland Post 130 from New York 7-4 on Saturday and then lost to Sandwich, Massachusetts, 6-4 in Sunday’s third-place game.
Quirk Motor City defeated Lynn, Massachusetts, 9-2 in Friday’s opening round of the eight-team tournament.
“The kids battled,” said Quirk Motor City head coach Ryan Lincoln, whose team produced 29 hits in the three games. “But we committed errors at crucial times, errors we hadn’t been making lately, and we just couldn’t get timely hits when we needed them.”
Quirk Motor City committed seven errors in the Saturday and Sunday games after making just six in six state tournament games.
“We had a good tournament. I think it’s the highest a Maine team has finished in a Junior Legion regional, although Junior Legion hasn’t been around that long,” Lincoln said.
In Saturday’s contest, Alex Wein’s run-scoring single in the sixth broke a 4-4 tie and the New York champs added two unearned runs in the seventh to collect the victory.
Thomas Knott’s solo homer in the fifth had tied the game for Quirk Motor City.
Knott had a single to go with his homer and teammate Alex Tash singled twice. Nolan Hodgkins contributed a run-scoring single.
Knott pitched 6⅓ innings of five-hit baseball with six strikeouts and two walks. He allowed five runs but just three were earned.
On Sunday, the Massachusetts runner-up scored three runs in the sixth inning to rally past Quirk Motor City.
Mike Brown had a double, two singles and an RBI for Quirk Motor City. Tash doubled and singled and Zach Doore contributed a run-scoring single for the Maine champs.
Brown and Alan Wheaton teamed up on a five-hitter on the mound for Quirk Motor City. Two of the runs off them were unearned.
Stony Point, New York, defeated Dover, New Hampshire, 4-3 in eight innings in Sunday’s Northeast championship game.
