Some defensive wizardry and a stellar pitching performance by Greg Helget has put Ely's American Legion baseball team in the consolation title game at Virginia's Land of the Loon Tournament.
Helget blanked Marble 1-0 in Saturday's consolation round, helping Post 248 bounce back after an opening round, 7-0 defeat to Duluth Central.
Ely, now 3-1, will meet West Duluth at 9:30 a.m. Sunday in the consolation final.
It took both strong pitching and some defensive gems for Ely to get past Marble for the third time this week. Helget notched his first career Legion shutout and walked only one batter while going the distance.
But he also needed some help from his defense. With two runners aboard in the sixth, Nick Mathews snared a line drive off the bat of Marble's Jordan Peratalo, saving two runs. The next inning, Sean Fisher ran down Erikur Arnason's fly ball in the left-center gap, ending a Marble rally with a diving catch.
Ely got the game's only run in the seventh. Nick Mathews reached base on an infield single, went to second on a throwing error and third on a wild pitch. He scored on Jory Johnson's one-out sacrifice fly.
Ely had only three hits against losing pitcher Jared Becicka. Helget fanned five while going the distance and recording his second win of the summer.
In action on Friday, Duluth Central broke open a scoreless game with five runs in the top of the fifth. All but one was unearned in the inning against losing pitcher Alex Koschak.
Central's Garrett Hanson dominated on the mound. He gave up a hit to Trevor Bernsdorf in the first, and it would prove to be Ely's last. The hard-throwing righthander struck out 10 and walked just three. In one stretch, Hanson retired 15 of 16 Ely batters.
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