Madison Wins Again at National Regional
Photo credit: Jim Pliner
The Madison Impact American Legion team put themselves in position to make a serious run at the Great Lakes Regional title with a 4-0 win over Alton, Illinois on Thursday night.
The victory made the Impact 2-0 at the tournament thus far and set up a matchup with Midland, Michigan on Friday night. Midland was the national runner-up in 2014 and is the defending Great Lakes Regional champion.
Madison’s bats bashed out ten hits and seven runs in their tournament opener, and they stayed hot in the encore performance. They mustered 12 hits against Alton and rode a stellar pitching performance by Tyler Fischer to clinch the win.
The Impact flew out of the gates and scored three runs in the 1st inning, highlighted by an RBI triple by Chad Herbst and RBI singles by Andrew Pliner and Mike Brekke. Madison added their only other run in the 4th inning after Herbst hit an RBI single, but a four run cushion was more than enough than for Fischer on the mound.
The righty pitched a complete game shutout against the Illinois state runners-up and allowed just six hits while striking out six batters. Alton only managed to get a runner on third base twice in the entire game thanks to Fischer’s efforts.
Herbst was again the biggest threat in the Impact lineup. He went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs for Madison. Overall at the tournament, he is 4-for-8 with 4 RBIs and 2 runs scored.
Madison now finds themselves in the same position that Plover was in last year. Plover started the tournament 2-0 before losing to Midland in their third game. The Impact will hope to flip the script when they take the field with Midland at 7 PM on Friday night.
