Austin Post 1216’s run in the State VFW Tournament came to an end Friday night, falling 9-4 to St. Paul RanView in the consolation bracket.

The loss didn’t come, however, before an impressive showing in the tournament by Post 1216 who came in as the host team with just a 8-10 record.

In the game prior against Alexandria, Austin pulled out a bottom of the seventh inning win, 8-7 on a RBI single from Jake Thompson. It was the team’s second win of the tournament after falling in their opening game against Proctor 6-2.

“We didn’t have a real good regular season to be honest,” coach Andy Swank said after the loss to St. Paul. “But we knocked out a couple teams. We saved our best baseball for here.”

In the first game, Austin’s late -game heroics capped a furious comeback by Alexandria who, down early in the game, never really gave Post 1216 a chance to breath.

Tied 7-7, Thompson lined a pitch from pitcher Nick Knoblach down the left field line to drive Anthony Condit home for the winning run.

“I thought it felt pretty good,” Thompson said. “I saw it was a curveball he left up and that’s a pitch you can’t do that with. Oh boy it felt good.”

Austin took a quick 3-0 lead in the first over Alexandria, jumping on pitcher Ben Allen and taking advantage of an error and two wild pitches.

Marcus Stoulil and Gabe Kasek started with back-to-back singles and Zach Wilder reached on an error.

Stoulil scored on the error and Kasek and Wilder then scored on a two RBI single by Isaac Gorman.

Alexandria answered in the top of the second when Nick Knoblach scored on a single from Matt Pilgrim.

Austin’s 3-1 lead held up until it was able to add two more in the bottom of the fourth when Tyler Belknap scored on a throwing error and Tommy Olmsted scored on an RBI single from Joey Raso.

With a comfortable 5-1 lead, Austin got its first big challenge from Alexandria. With two outs, Alexandria rattled off a string of hits that seemed to find every gap on the field.

“They just started hitting some bleeders,” Swank said. “Every game is going to have that. Give (Alexandria) credit. It’s the state tournament. You’re not going to have easy stick wins.”

Starting with Grant Becker’s double, Alexandria strung together four singles. The inning ended with the score tied 5-5

Austin got some insurance the very next inning with two runs, both coming off a botched rundown by Alexandria.

Leading 7-5, Austin again had to withstand Alexandria’s bats. Alexandria scored once in the sixth coming on off a sacrifice fly and then again to tie it in the seventh when Zach Carlson, who kicked off the inning with a triple, scored on a wild pitch from Serratore.

Then came Thompson’s single to finally seal the game away.

“They battled the whole way,” Swank said. “It’s been a pretty good tournament. We really have nothing to loose.”

Serratore went the distance for Austin, gaining his second win of the tournament.

He did, however, give up nine hits and six earned runs. He struck out four.

Stoulil had two singles for the game, and Gorman tallied two RBI’s.

St. Paul 9, Austin 4

Austin fell behind early in the second game against St. Paul, 3-0 in the first inning, and despite playing with RanView for the rest of the game, just couldn’t get over the hump.­

Austin got a couple quick outs in the first, but then St. Paul started stringing hits together that led to the early deficit.

“They’re a very good hitting team, one of the best in the state,” Swank said.

Austin had some chances as well early, but left runners in scoring position in two of the first three innings.

“We left two runners on in the third and the bases loaded in the second,” Swank said. “If we don’t leave those runners then we could have played with them the entire game. We never gave it away though.”

Austin was down 4-0 before Post 1216 was able to get on the board. Gorman led the inning off, reaching on an error, one of five St. Paul committed on the game. He later scored off a sacrifice groundball by Olmsted.

Then, down 5-1 going into the fifth, Austin was able to cut it to 5-3. Wilder drove in Gabe Kasak on a double and then scored himself off a sacrifice fly from Thompson.

However, the game turned out to be game of matching runs. Each time Austin scored, St. Paul would match it.

Austin’s final score came in the sixth inning when Jake Martin scored off a Kasak double.

Marcus Stoulil took the loss for Austin, pitching five innings for Austin. Despite taking the loss, Stoulil was able to keep Austin in a position to win including striking out Kevin Miley in the second with two runners in scoring position.

“I would call it a gutsy performance,” Swank said.

“He gave us a chance.”

Stoulil ended with a triple while Wilder and Kasak both added doubles and an RBI each.

Austin ends its season 10-12.