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Ely’s Junior Legion baseball team won three of four games and placed second in a season-opening, seven-team tournament.
Duluth East edged Ely 2-1 in Sunday’s title game of the z’Up North Realty Junior Legion Classic, held at Veterans Memorial Field.
That was the only blemish of the weekend for Post 248, which scored earlier wins over Hermantown, Cloquet and Crosby-Ironton.
Strong pitching carried the way for Ely, even in defeat.
In the finals, Hunter Halbakken blanked Duluth East for five frames but the visitors broke through with two runs in the top of the sixth.
Halbakken helped close the gap in the bottom of the frame, plating a run with a single, but Ely stranded the tying run at third and went down in order in the seventh.
Caid Chittum had two of Ely’s five hits, both doubles and scored the hosts’ only run.
Halbakken scattered nine hits over six innings and notched six strikeouts, while lefty Stig Majerus tossed a scoreless seventh.
• Ely opened the tournament with a 13-5 win over Hermantown on Friday, June 7.
Talen Jarshaw worked four innings on the mound and allowed one hit en route to the win. H albakken finished up.
Chittum stoked the Ely offense with three hits and four runs scored, and Sean Merriman added two hits with two runs scored from the leadoff spot.
Catcher Ben Leeson added two hits with three runs batted in, and Majerus scored twice.
On Saturday, Owen Marolt allowed one hit over six innings, with nine strikeouts, as Ely downed Cloquet 7-3.
Halbakken had two hits including a double and two RBI, while Merriman added two hits, Jarshaw scored twice and had a run-scoring double.
Post 248 beat Crosby- Ironton 13-6 under the lights on Saturday.
Chittum had a double among his three hits and three RBI, and Leeson scored three times with three RBI.
Merriman, Brady Eaton and Evan Leeson all added two hits, with Eaton finishing with two RBI.
On the mound, Chittum went the first three innings and allowed five hits with seven strikeouts, and Merriman went the rest of the way, yielding one hit with three strikeouts over four innings.
• The Junior Legion team is set to face South Ridge in a June 18 doubleheader on the road.
