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The American Legion Post 70 baseball team saw its season come to a close this week when they fell in the American Legion Southeast Regional Tournament in Pelham.

Saturday’s loss eliminated Post 70 from winning a regional championship for the fifth consecutive season. Head coach Rush Hixon believes the team just didn’t play well enough to win.

“It didn’t end the way we would have liked it to,” Hixon said. “To put is simply, we just didn’t play well enough to win down the stretch. In any type of postseason, in any sport, or at any level, everything gets magnified and the competition gets better. The mistakes have to be less and less. Ultimately we made too many mistakes and didn’t do the little things right to win at a championship level. It’s a good thing to know and to build on later. Credit to the teams we played; there was a lot of good competition out there.”

After winning the first two games of the tournament, Post 70 dropped two consecutive games, leading to their elimination. In their two losses, Post 70 lost by a total of five runs.

“I feel like our regional is the hardest regional,” Hixon said. “That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to have that competition. We got down in most games and we fought back in almost every single game. Credit to my guys; they never quit until the final out. That kind of character and fight will carry over way past sports.”

Following the loss coach Hixon posted on social media that Post 70 is not about wins and losses, but the relationships built between the players, the coaches and the alumni.

“I think my favorite part about sports is the relationships built,” Hixon said. “We had former guys texting us all week, wanting to know how we are doing and wishing us luck. It’s way past wins and losses, it’s the relationships built that carry over. Once your done playing for us, we still keep up with you and still want the best for you. Having the support from the alumni of the program is what I think Post 70 is all about.”

With the season now over, Post 70 will begin to look towards next summer where they hope to get back to the regionals and advance to the world series.

“We are going to do everything we can to put together a really elite team this next summer and go and win the regional,” Hixon said. “We won five straight state tournaments in a row and the goal for us is to win the regional. Everything we are going to do leading up to next summer is putting a team together that is capable of doing that.”