CHAFFEE'S MAGICAL SEASON COMES TO AN END

ENID, Okla. -- Chaffee Medicap Pharmacy's magical American Legion baseball season finally came to a halt here Sunday afternoon.

Merrero, La., took advantage of six Chaffee errors -- which led to five unearned runs -- as it posted an 8-6 victory in the semifinal round of the eight-team Mid-South Regional Tournament.

Merrero (32-5) advances to tonight's regional championship game against Midwest City, Okla. (62-13). Chaffee ends its season with a 53-13 record.

"You'd have to go way back in our scorebook to find six errors," said Chaffee manager Jeff Graviett. "That was the killer today."

Still, Graviett found it hard to be too disappointed as Chaffee entered the day as one of only 32 teams still playing out of the more than 5,000 American Legion squads in the United States.

"We finished in the top 32 in the nation," Graviett said. "The kids have had a great couple of weeks and we have nothing to be disappointed about."

Graviett made the decision to start Scott Eftink on the mound instead of ace pitcher Matt Stroup, who was available to start. But Graviett said he was looking more at the big picture of trying to win the regional title and he felt his team would need solid innings out of Stroup both days.

"We could have started Matt and that probably would have increased our chances of winning today," said Graviett. "But we talked about having the best chance to not just get to the finals but win the whole thing and that was to go the way we did."

Even though Eftink suffered the loss, he probably deserved a better fate. In four innings, the left-hander allowed six hits and six runs, but only three of the runs were earned.

"Scotty did a great job. He gave us exactly what we needed," Graviett said. "We just didn't make the plays behind him. He's not a strikeout pitcher. He's going to get ground balls and you have to make the plays."

Stroup replaced Eftink in the fifth with Chaffee trailing 6-4. The right-hander worked the final four innings, allowing one hit and two unearned runs. In 15 tournament innings, Stroup -- who recorded both of Chaffee's victories in pool play -- allowed no earned runs.

"Matt didn't have his real good stuff, but he just always gets the job done," said Graviett.

Chaffee outhit Merrero 11 to seven, led by Stroup's 4-for-5 performance that included two runs batted in. Justin Simpher had three hits and two RBIs.

"We swung the bats well," said Graviett. "We had some chances early we didn't take advantage of and that caught up with us."

One of the key plays of the contest came in the bottom of the second inning as a Merrero batted was credited with a two-run home run to left field even though many in the park thought the ball was foul. That blast put Merrero up 3-2.

"It was definitely well foul," Graviett said. "It was a tough break."

The game was a back-and-forth affair early. Chaffee broke on top in the opening inning on Simpher's two-run single, but Merrero got one in the bottom of the first and two in the second.

Chaffee took its final lead in the third on Stroup's two-run triple that made it 4-3. But Merrero went ahead for good with a three-run fourth, all the runs being unearned thanks to a pair of key errors.

Merrero carried an 8-5 lead into the ninth, but Chaffee was able to make things interesting. With two outs, Simpher singled, Garrett Cook reached on an error and Stroup got an RBI single before the rally ended.