CHAFFEE FOCUSES ON ZONE CROWN

The Chaffee Medicap Pharmacy American Legion baseball team will look to continue its season of firsts this week.

Last weekend, Chaffee captured its first-ever district championship. Now the squad has its sights set on the program's first zone title.

While Chaffee will be facing some rugged competition during the five-team Zone Tournament that begins today in Senath, Mo., Medicap Pharmacy manager Jeff Graviett figures his club has as good a shot as anybody at advancing to next week's American Legion State Tournament in Columbia, Mo.

"Any time you get this far, everybody is going to be really good," said Graviett. "But I feel good about our chances. We've been playing extremely well and I feel our chances are as good as anybody. Our record will speak for itself and I think we have to be one of the favorites."

Chaffee certainly has an impressive record at 44-9, which includes 32 victories in its past 33 games. But Graviett's squad is not alone in bringing lofty credentials to the zone tourney that features four district champions and host Dunklin County.

Festus, Chaffee's first-round opponent in the tournament opener at 5:30 p.m. today, is 31-9. Defending state champion Dunklin County is 37-14. Oakville and Anheuser-Busch, the two St. Louis-area representatives, are 33-17 and 21-14, respectively.

"All the teams look really strong," Graviett said. "Festus has one of the best clubs they've had in a while. Dunklin County, even though they went out quick in our (District 14) tournament, is still the defending state champion. Oakville, coming out of that tough district in St. Louis, will be good. We split two games with Anheuser-Busch and they're solid."

Graviett said he considers his team and Festus as among the top favorites. Since the squads square off in the first round and victor advances to the winner's bracket final of the double-elimination event, the survivor of today's tourney opener will be sitting fairly pretty.

"The first game is pretty well a must win," said Graviett. "You win that one and you have to feel real good about your chances. If you lose, you have to come back and win five games, so that would be really tough."

Chaffee has been led all summer by an extremely strong pitching staff that boasts a collective earned-run average of 2.78. Matt Stroup, the area's premier high school pitcher last spring, has led the way with an 11-2 record and a 1.88 ERA. He went 3-0 during the District 14 Tournament and will get the nod today.

"Matt is the man. He's been our best all year long and we feel good about going into the first game with him," Graviett said.

Chaffee's next two starters have been Justin Simpher (7-1, 2.27 ERA) and G.P. Glueck (4-1, 3.52) while Scott Eftink and Adam Friga have also been solid when called upon.

"Our pitching has been there all year," said Graviett. "And our defense has been good for the most part."

While not overwhelming offensively, Chaffee has still put up solid numbers at the plate with a team batting average of .324, led by Simpher at .464. He also has four home runs and 31 runs batted in.

Other hitters above .300 for Chaffee are John O'Rourke (.397), Andrew DePeder (.370), Stroup (.333), Todd Friend (.317) and Glueck (.302).

DePeder and Friend are tied with Simpher for the team home-run lead with four while DePeder has a team-high 46 RBIs. O'Rourke is first in runs scored with 49 and Friga is the pace-setter in stolen bases with 20.

Festus coach Pat Bone, whose club won a state title in 1996 and is back in the zone event after a three-year absence, will start left-hander Jake Habsieger (7-1) today. Like Graviett, Bone rates his outfit as one of the teams to beat but he has plenty of respect for everybody in the tournament.

"We like our chances but we know it's going to be tough," he said. "This is going to be an outstanding tournament and the first game is going to be a good one. We know Chaffee has an outstanding team and whoever wins this first game is going to be in really good shape."