Merced Volunteers win again, will play for American Legion state championship.

The Merced Volunteers will play for the American Legion state championship on Monday after holding off Patrick Henry of San Diego 4-3 on Sunday afternoon at the American Legion State Tournament.

Recent Chowchilla High graduate Austin Hickman pitched into the seventh inning to pick up the win as the Volunteers (18-11-1) improved to 3-0 in the tournament.

Hickman gave up just two hits before leaving with one out in the seventh after throwing 106 pitches. The right-hander gave up just three runs, two of which were earned. He was able to pitch around five walks and two hit batters. Hickman followed strong pitching performances from Jaret Mello and Kadon Floro the previous two games.

Daniel Urestes came in to pitch for Merced with one out and in the seventh and walked a batter. His error allowed the tying run reach third base with one out.

However, Urestes struck out the next batter and Clayton Hall came in to strike out the final batter to close out the game.

The Volunteers tied the game at 1-1 in the second inning when RJ Garcia drove in Floro with a sacrifice fly.

Merced then took a 3-1 lead in with two runs in the third inning on a Daniel Beaird two-run single that plated Hall and Joe Flores.

The Trojans came back to tie the game at 3-3 with runs in the third and fourth inning.

The Volunteers took the lead for good in the sixth inning when Robert White singled and came around to score when a pop fly off the bat of Flores was dropped to give Merced a 4-3 lead.

Beaird and Floro both finished with two hits for the Volunteers.

The Volunteers will play the winner of Saturday’s late game between Petaluma and Patrick Henry. The championship game is scheduled for 9 a.m.

This story was originally published July 28, 2019 at 4:04 PM.