It's been a long summer for Bath's Legion team and it finally came to an end last week in the Region 2 American Legion Baseball Tournament.

The locals fell to Norchester 9-0 last Wednesday to lose their second game of the double-elimination tournament, as both of their losses came by the hands of Norchester and their talented right-handed pitcher Steve Muscovitch.

Muscovitch led Norchester to a 4-3 victory over Bath in both teams' opening game of the tournament and he ended their tournament last week with a seven-hit shutout.

Bath head coach Alex Specht felt his team did the most they could, as they ended their season at 21-8 with a NORCO title in hand.

"I just think we got gassed at the end," Specht said. "These guys have been going since February and we got tired. When you go five days as much as we did, it becomes a challenge for everyone. I think we did the best we could."

Norchester would lose to North Parkland 12-7 later in the afternoon for the Region 2 title. The Bulldogs had played three games in 20 hours and may have fell victims to the challenge of playing so many games in a short amount of time as well.

North Parkland moved on to states, rewarding 75-year-old head coach Terry Stoudt, with his first region title.

For Specht, who is roughly 50 years younger than Stoudt, having Bath battle all the way through the losers bracket into the tournament's final day was bittersweet.

"We wanted to get to states and we felt like we had the team capable of doing that," he said. "We just ran out of gas."

With Specht's first-year under his belt now complete, he feels good about what this team accomplished, as they move forward with a new team next year.

"We lose a good amount of our guys next summer," said Specht, "but this group was fun to coach. I tip my hat to these kids for the way they kept battling. We just came up a little short."