PENDLETON – The Dave’s Food Mart American Legion baseball team ended a successful season on a disappointing note this weekend at the AA District tournament in Baker City.

Dave’s was eliminated from the double-elimination tournament with a 9-8 loss Saturday to the Milton-Freewater Twins, a team they had beaten in five of six previous meetings. Dave’s also beat Milton-Freewater 13-2 Friday in the first game of the tournament.

“We played really well,” Dave’s coach Kevin Moore said. “The kids shouldn’t be ashamed by any means. We lost two heartbreakers.”

After beating the Twins, Dave’s dropped a 3-2 decision against Baker City, which scored three unearned runs in the first inning. The loss sent Dave’s into the consolation bracket for the matchup with Milton-Freewater.

Milton-Freewater’s Jesus Gonzalez had the game-winning RBI in the bottom of the seventh inning when his single brought in two runs to end the game.

“It was a matter of them coming up with big hits,” Dave’s assistant coach Travis Zander said. “They won the game. They hit our best pitching. It’s not like we made mistakes, they just got the hits when they needed them.”

La Grande won the district tournament and Baker was second. Baker will represent the district at the state tournament because the regional tournament will be held in La Grande and the host team earns an automatic bid.

“Our goal was to go in and win the thing,” Moore said. “We were thinking that the best we could have done was first and the worst was second. But unfortunately that didn’t happen. It’s kind of disappointing.”

Milton-Freewater outhit Dave’s 13-9 in the game. Milton-Freewater trailed 8-4 through five innings of play, but came back to score three in the sixth and two in the seventh to take the lead.

Chad Harsin went 2 for 4 and Bryce Palm went 2 for 3 with a two-run triple to lead Dave’s offensively.

In Friday’s victory over Milton-Freewater, Dave’s used 20 hits to take control of the game. Marc Meunier earned the win on the mound after four innings of one-hit ball. Greg Hedrick pitched the final three innings and gave up one hit.

Stuart Swearingen went 3 for 5 with a three-run home run, Meunier went 2 for 5 with two RBI and Palm went 4 for 5 with two RBI to lead Dave’s at the plate.

Dave’s led 8-0 after four innings and controlled the game much of the way.

Against Baker, Dave’s lost a total of seven base runners on pick-offs and caught stealing. They had runners on base in every inning except the second and fourth, but couldn’t manage to push any more than two runs across.

Swearingen was tagged with the loss, despite allowing four hits with one walk and nine strikeouts. Dave’s outhit Baker 7-4.

“We had high expectations for the tournament,” Zander said. “We really thought we could get into the championship. It was just two good innings by Milton-Freewater. It’s not like we weren’t hitting the ball and playing hard.”

Dave’s finished the season with a 29-23 record. Ten players had more than 100 plate appearances and 12 had more than 90 in a full summer of baseball.

Swearingen, who also played first and outfield, led the team in trips to the batter’s box with 154. He hit .314 with two home runs, led the team in walks with 30, scored 34 runs and had 39 RBI.

On the mound, Swearingen had an 8-5 record with two saves in 67 innings of work. He had a 3.88 ERA, struck out 71 and walked 34.

Jon Levy, the team’s clean-up hitter and right fielder, led the team in hits (42), doubles (14) and RBI (40). He also batted .362 and chipped in 21 innings as a pitcher with a 3-0 record and 3.39 ERA.

Josh McKinstry was the No. 3 batter and led the team in runs (35) and stolen bases (19), while playing a variety of positions in the field.

Meunier was another of Dave’s primary pitchers. He was 7-4 with 67 strikeouts and 29 walks in 60 innings. He also batted .316.

Palm and John Fisher turned it up a notch in the second half of the season. Palm finished with a .406 batting average with 31 runs scored and 23 RBI. Fisher ended up with a .278 after a slow start.

Harsin and Hedrick played a big role in Dave’s offensive attack. Harsin played second and third and had 135 plate appearances and only nine strikeouts from the second spot in the lineup. Hedrick batted .316 and went 4-2 on the mound with 24 strikeouts in 42 innings pitched.

Billy Zimmerman (.311), Tony Gailey (.279), Chase Berry (14 stolen bases) and Jeremy Johnson (.277) all did their part offensively. Mario Arroyo chipped in 47 innings on the mound and had 26 strikeouts and a 3-2 record.

Dave’s also had the luxury of three players from the 15-year-old Babe Ruth team who had close to 60 Legion plate appearances. Matt Gundlach batted .447 with a .576 on-base percentage, Eli Anderson batted .300 and Jason Post hit .255.

Jake Calvert also played a handful of games and finished with a .300 batting average.

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Assistant sports editor Morgan Ryan can be reached at 1-800-522-0255 (ext. 1-223) or by e-mail at mryan@eastoregonian.com.