Photo by Cody Nespor Parkersburg’s Brett Hawkins delivers to the plate during the Area 1 Tournament championship against Wheeling Post 1 Friday at the I-470 Sports Complex.

ELM GROVE — For the second night in a row, Wheeling Post 1 never got the big hit it needed and dropped a narrow contest to Parkersburg Post 15 at the I-470 Sports Complex.

After Parkersburg sqeaked by Wheeling 4-3 in Thursday’s semifinal, Post 15 claimed the Area 1 tournament with a 2-0 triumph Friday night.

Like in Thursday’s game, Parkersburg took advantage of an early offensive opportunity and pitching carried them the rest of the way.

“Pitching and defense is what we live on, it’s what has gotten us through the big games the entire year,” Post 15 coach Mike Goodwin said. “Offenivley, we’ve been able to give ourselves more breathing room at times, but on the days that we don’t do that, we’ve really leaned hard on our older kids to pitch tight games and today was just another example of that.”

Ripley graduate Brett Haskins was the star for Parkersburg Friday, pitching a complete-game shutout. He struck out seven while yielding just three hits and issuing one free pass. He also had two hits at the plate and scored a run.

“Brett Haskins won this game by pitching as well as he could, he came up big for us,” Goodwin said. “He mixed his speeds up, mixed his locations up and that kept them guessing even in the last inning. That was the story of the entire game, and he was able to duplicate that each inning.”

“I thought he did a really good job of keeping our guys off balance,” Post 1 skipper Jon-Michael Brunner added about Haskins. “His offspeed (pitches) were working and then we started chasing late in the game.”

Parkersburg struck quickly in the first inning, getting runners to second and third with one out. Eli Reeves hit a double just past the glove of Wheeling’s right fielder to score the first run and Dylan Holliday followed with a bloop hit to left field that plated the other.

That would end up being the only offense of the entire game. After the first inning, Post 15 and Post 1 each only recorded two more hits.

“I was disappointed in our offensive production throughout the entire game,” Goodwin said. “Thankfully Brett stepped up, because our offense didn’t come through when we needed it.”

Despite some shaky command, Wheeling picher Jack Selmon kept his team in the game and gave them a chance to win. In five innings, Selmon allowed five hits and six walks, but struck out seven. He stranded five runners on base betweem the fourth and fifth innings.

“I would’ve liked us to hit with runners in scoring position more, because we had runners in scoring position multiple times, but did not get the big hit,” Goodwin said. “Only scoring two runs against Wheeling is very scary.”

Post 1’s chances came few and far between. The team’s last baserunner came in the top of the fourth on a single by Jack Scouvart, but he was eventually doubled up on a ground ball to end the inning. Haskins, who’s heading to Fairmont Senior to play baseball, was perfect through the final three innings.

“It’s not just one guy that’s coming up all the time and not coming through with that hit,” Brunner said. “It’s kind of been that whenever we do lose, that’s the reason why, we just can’t get the big hit.”

Brunner said this will be the end of a chapter of sorts for Post 1 as four of the team’s most important players will age out of Legion ball by next summer — Michael Toepfer, Dylan Gongola, Chris Vargo and Zach Taylor.

“Losing these four guys sucks,” Brunner said. “It’s basically the middle of our lineup and the nuts and bolts of our defense. Those are guys that came to work every day, wanting more ground balls, more cuts. You just hope that these younger guys see that.”

Despite facing a two-hour drive each way from Parkersburg to Wheeling, Goodwin said he made the decision not to stay over in Wheeling for the area tournament.

“The benefits of staying at home and sleeping in your own bed outweigh the fun of going to a hotel and this is the result of that,” he said.

Parkersburg advances to next week’s state tournament in Morgantown. Goodwin said it’s a shame that Wheeling will not be going with them.

“I have a lot of respect for Wheeling Post 1, they’ve represented our area many times,” Goodwin said. “They have had a great season and probably deserve to be in the state tournament as well.”

As for his own team, Goodwin said they would celebrate Friday and then regroup today and start to gear up for the state tournament.

“I’m comfortable with what we’ve achieved so far, but we’re not done,” he said. “We’ve got to keep working and getting better because this team has one goal, to win it all.”

Wheeling 11, Follansbee 0

ELM GROVE — To get to Friday night’s game against Parkersburg, Post 1 defeated Follansbee Post 45 11-0 earlier in an elimination game.

Toepfer’s two-run double in the first started the scoring for Wheeling. Post 1 put up five runs in the fourth on RBIs from Gongola, Toepfer, Scouvart, Nate Simon and Braydon Kupsky.

Quinn Jamison pitched four scoreless innings for Wheeling and Nate Simon finished the game off in the fifth.

Henry Anderson took the loss on the mound for Follansbee and hit a first-inning single.