Post 312 Exceeds Manager's Expectations During Successful Season

The St. Charles American Legion Post 312 manager Kurt Denningmann wasn’t sure what to expect from his team when the season began.

“I knew we had a bunch of great ball players, but it was a young team,” Denningman said. “They knew how to win and we started off taking second in a tournament and then went on a little bit of a winning streak."

The more he saw the younger kids play, the more he believed in them and soon they started to believe in themselves, he said.

“When the season started, I thought we’d be competitive, but we’re more than competitive and the record shows that,” he said.

The record was 27-9 going into the Blue Springs tourney this week after a 3-2 showing at last weekend's 30th annual Tournament of Champions. Post 312 bowed out of the tourney after falling in Monday morning’s quarterfinal. Denningmann isn’t worried about his pitching for next week’s District 9 tourney.

“When we come back from Blue Springs, I think we have four days rest,” Denningmann said. “I have 10 kids that pitch so we’re fine on pitching going into the tournament.”

Post 312 has eight pitchers with at least 12 innings pitched and, of those, four have earned run averages under 2.00.

Leading the team in innings pitched is Connor Brett with 49 2/3 with 51 strikeouts and an ERA of 1.97. Brett is also third on the team in batting with a .388 average and leads the club with five triples.

Sam Chambers is Post 312’s top hitter with a .420 average. The leadoff man is third on the team with 119 at-bats and has an on-base percentage of .513. Adam Ricks leads the team with 133 at-bats and is batting .339 with a team-best 30 runs batted in. Zach Jones has 120 at-bats and is batting .350 with four triples. Michael Eimer is right behind Chambers with a .418 average.

While Brett is considered the team’s ace, he is 3-1 on the season. Dustin Fuller, who is hitting .314, leads the team with a 6-0 mark. He has two complete games – Brett and Eimer have three apiece to lead the team – and an ERA of 1.82. Eimer is 4-2 with an ERA of 2.84.

Because Post 312 is the host team for the zone tournament, it is already guaranteed one of the three District 9 spots. That doesn’t mean the St. Charles players will simply coast through the district tournament.

“We have an automatic bid into the zone tournament and I don’t like that,” Denningmann said. “I’d like to earn our way into the zones. We’ve got one more chance to do that and that’s by winning the North district tournament. We’ve got a lot to fight for yet.

“I don’t want to go into the zone tournament and have teams saying, ‘Oh they’re in here because they automatically got a berth.’ I want teams to look at it like, ‘These guys deserve to be here.’”