Corsica opens state B Legion tourney against Vermillion today

CORSICA — After a long wait, the Corsica Legion baseball team has made its way back to the state tournament.

Head coach Bob Bamberg doesn’t remember exactly when the last trip to the tournament was for Corsica’s Legion team, but believes it was sometime in the late 1980s.

“It’s been quite a while,” said Bamberg, whose team plays Vermillion in the first round of the Class B Legion state tournament today in Milbank. “Everybody’s pretty excited about going. We had to go the hard way through the regions, but we got here.”

Corsica, which plays at approximately noon in the second game of the morning doubleheader, dropped its first region playoff game to Tabor, putting the pressure on and needing five straight wins to earn a berth to the state tournament.

A nail-biting 7-5 win over Irene kept Corsica’s hopes alive, and after a 13-1 win over Lesterville/Scotland, the team encountered Tabor once again.

Corsica (13-3) knew Tabor would be its toughest challenge. All three losses for Corsica on the season were against Tabor.

“They are a pretty powerful team,” Bamberg said. “We had a lot of errors in the first tournament game against them.”

Bamberg said finally bringing down Tabor gave his team confidence and the team was able to take down Platte/Geddes twice to qualify for the state tournament, where the road doesn’t get any easier as the team takes on Vermillion in the opening round.

“I don’t know a whole lot about the other teams,” Bamberg said. “I know Vermillion has a good ball team and their high school team won the championship, so we know they’ve got some good players.

“We’re going to have to play good defense and get hits from everybody, not just the top five guys in the lineup.”

Bamberg said Adam Fink will be looked at as a leader for Corsica’s offense at the state tournament. Bamberg said Fink came up big for the team during the region tournament along with Dustin Bultje and Aaron Groeneweg.

On the mound for Corsica, Bamberg said Groeneweg will probably get the start in the opening-round game. Groeneweg pitched eight no-hit innings against Tabor in the regionals to help Corsica win that game. He had to get pulled from the game because of an innings rule set by the state.

“Our ace would probably be Groeneweg,” Bamberg said. “He throws pretty hard and mixes it up well.”

Bamberg said Alex Kocer is another pitcher who may be relied on during the state tournament.

“Between (Groeneweg) and Kocer, they both throw pretty well,” Bamberg said. “We’ve gotten some big games out of the rest of our guys as well.”

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