PERRYVILLE LEGION SET FOR TOURNEY

A confident Perryville American Legion baseball team will hit the field today when the Zone 4 Tournament gets under way at Heine Meine Field in St. Louis.

Perryville showed it belonged in last year's zone tourney, losing a pair of one-run games. This time around, manager Erv Armbruster believes his squad has a legitimate shot at the title in the four-team, double-elimination event.

"I think we can definitely play with these teams," said Armbruster. "Our goal is to win and head to Columbia for the state tournament."

Perryville will play Creve Coeur at 5:30 p.m. today, followed by an 8:30 p.m. contest between defending zone champion Dunklin County and Anheuser-Busch. There will be three games Friday, with the finals set for 1 p.m. Saturday.

One of the primary reasons Armbruster is confident that his team will match up well with the other zone squads is that Perryville has already beaten Anheuser-Busch and it split a doubleheader with Chaffee, which edged out Dunklin County for first place in District 14's regular season before finishing a close second to Dunklin County in the District 14 Tournament.

"We're really looking forward to it," Armbruster said. "And we should have a good following up there. Our fans really support us. We had at least 200 people there when we won the district at Ste. Genevieve. The trip to St. Louis isn't that far, so we should have a lot of fans."

Perryville, which has a 21-10 record, won its second consecutive District 13 Tournament title last Saturday, edging Imperial 2-1 in 11 innings. Armbruster said he expected to field another solid team this year.

"We had nine players coming back from last year, and last year's junior (Legion) team won the district," he said. "I thought we'd be good."

Perryville features players from four high schools, two in Perryville and two in Ste. Genevieve.

Six players are off the Perryville-St. Vincent High School squad that won the Missouri Class 1A state title this year: Brian Brown, Derek Kutz, Gabe Hotop, Cory Strattman, Justin Amschler and Brandon Carroll.

Perryville High School products are Colby Palisch, Ryan Wichern, Darin Deckerd and Ryan Tweedy. Tweedy is the team's only player who has already competed on the college level, having played his freshman season at Harris-Stowe in St. Louis this past spring.

From Ste. Genevieve High School are Luke Miller, Dustin Schmelzle, Todd Thomure, Wes Wolk and Keith Webery. Ste. Genevieve Valle High School products are Jeff Viox, Jeremy Mueller and Adam Basler.

Tweedy is Perryville's No. 1 pitcher. He hurled 10 innings during the 2-1, 11-inning win over Imperial for the district title. For the season, he has an earned-run average of in the 2.00 range.

Schmelzle, Palisch, Kutz and Wolk are other top hurlers on what Armbruster considers to be a deep and solid mound corps. Schmelzle has an ERA of just over 3.00 while Palisch's ERA is a bit under that mark.

Viox is hitting in the .380 range to lead the way, and he batted almost .500 in the district tournament. Wichern, Hotop and Deckerd are all hitting about .370 while Miller has a team-high two home runs for a squad that does not possess much power, with only 11 homers as a group.