Photo by Kim North St. Clairsville Post 159 pitcher Brody Saunders delivers a pitch to the plate Thursday night against Marietta Post 64 in the Ohio American Legion Region 4 Baseball Tournament on Unified Bank Field at the St. Clairsville Jr. Sports Complex. Post 159 prevailed, 9-5, and will play Friday night at 8. Saunders fanned 10 in five-plus innings.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The summer of 2025 hasn’t been the kindest to the St. Clairsville Post 159 American Legion baseball team. However, when tournament time rolls around, it brings out the best in the local squad.

Thursday night on the artificial surface at Unified Bank Field inside the St. Clairsville Jr. Sports Complex, St. Clairsville (10-8) put together an outstanding all-around effort in sending Marietta Post 64 to the loser’s bracket with a 9-5 victory.

“We haven’t played a ton of games, but our eight losses have been to quality programs,” St. Clairsville manager Mike Mukliewicz said. “I didn’t know whether they were going to come together today, but they did. Any time you roll out Brody Saunders, he’s a dog on the mound. He was in command of his pitches and had a great game.”

Marietta’s Will Tornes sent the second pitch of the game from Saunders over the fence for a home run, but Post 159 drew even in the bottom of the inning on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Eli Smith.

Two runs in the second and two more in the fifth bumped the margin to 5-1 as Saunders helped his own cause with a two-run, two-out double. Peyton Blue doubled home a run in the fifth and Max Miller singled in another.

After Marietta made it 5-3 in the top of the sixth, St. Clairsville responded with a four-spot in the bottom of the frame to give itself some breathing room. Dylan Blon, Saunders and Blue had consecutive run-scoring singles before Smith doubled home the final run with a blast to deep center.

Blon, No. 2 in the Post 159 order, finished with three singles, an RBI and three runs scored.

“That’s huge for his confidence because he has been struggling at the plate the last few weeks,” Mukliewicz said. “He came to play today and had a couple of really big hits for us.”

Saunders struck out 10 and walked three in five-plus innings of work. He threw 104 pitches, one less than the single-game limit. Southpaw Kaleb Stang relieved to face a pair of left-handed hitters before giving way to Smith.

Marietta had advanced with a 3-1 win in the completion of a game suspended on Wednesday by inclement weather. Beverly-Lowell topped Zanesville 9-4. Beverly-Lowell and New Philadelphia played the late game on Thursday. St. Clairsville will play that winner at 8 on Friday night.

Ohio Jr. Legion

State Tournament

Lancaster 1, St. Clairsville 0

AT LANCASTER, the Post 159 Jr. Legion fell to Post 11 on a groundout in the eighth inning.

Roby Hanna went the first seven frames, striking out nine, walking two and yielding three hits. The loss went to Blake Burkhart who didn’t give up a hit, but walked a pair.

Jaxon Starks, Matheson King and Caiden Bailey had hits for St. Clairsville.

Post 159 is back in action Friday at 4:30 p.m. in loser’s bracket play.