By Thomas Grant Jr.
The 2025 American Legion baseball season has officially ended in Lexington County.
Both the Lexington Post 7 and West Columbia teams were eliminated from the state playoffs last week by Sumter Post 15.
Post 7 was swept in the opening round by Sumter. Meanwhile, West Columbia bounced back from a 13-2 loss in Game One to top seed Summerville Post 21 to win the next two games in the series.
In Game 2, Austin Rhodus and Robbie Murphy scored off an error on a flyball hit by Rylan Bullis to break the tie in a 7-5 victory at Brookland-Cayce High School.
The deciding game score Post 79 score six runs in the sixth inning for the 9-6 victory. Ayden Gallegos had two RBI and Rhodus and Cooper Dyer both went 2-3 in support of winning pitcher Bullis.
This advanced West Columbia to the 8-team double elimination tournament. It opened at A.C. Flora High School against League 3 champion Richland Post 215.
An 8-run fourth inning enabled Richland to take a 11-1 victory in five innings. This put West Columbia in an elimination game at home against Sumter.
A late rally with the potential winning run at the plate came up empty in a 4-2 defeat to end the season.
Sumter went on to lose to defending champion Camden 4-2 in an elimination game on Monday. Following Wednesday’s semifinal, the championship game will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday at Founder’s Park.
