AMERICAN LEGION CLASS AA AREA A TOURNAMENT

COEUR d'ALENE - Prairie Cardinals shortstop Dalton Lozier and oufielder/pitcher Jared Porter didn't seem rattled when they played the top-seeded Lewis-Clark Twins on Thursday night at Thorco Field in the opening game of the American Legion baseball class AA Area A (district) tournament.

Their teammates didn't appear rattled either based on their play.

The fourth-seeded Cardinals (8-36) battled the Twins (26-22) to the bottom of the ninth inning, when L-C's Chandler Tibbits hit a walk-off RBI single to right field with one out to give the Twins an 8-7 victory.

"Actually, we came out with the mentality that we were going to beat them," said Lozier, who had two hits in the game. "We wanted to be the underdogs. We wanted to come in, take the one seed out and become the one seed. We wanted to show everybody that even though we went 0-for (winless) in league, we wanted to show people that we were here to play."

Porter (2-8) gave up the winning run. He moved from right field to the pitcher's mound in the seventh inning and didn't allow a run until the walkoff RBI single. He was one of four Prairie hitters to have two hits in the game.

"It was exciting," Porter said about coming from right field into pitch. "I was really, really excited to go in there ... I'm pretty happy with how I threw today."

Ultimately, Tibbits' walkoff hit was the difference in the game.

"It was a clutch hit," Twins coach Allen Balmer said. "We needed that. Chandler's been good for us all year and got on a good fastball and he whacked it and got a run, so I'm happy for him."

The Twins play Northern Lakes (18-24), which beat Coeur d'Alene 9-2, today at 4 p.m. at Thorco Field. The Cardinals play Coeur d'Alene (28-19) in a loser-out game today at 1 p.m. at Thorco. The 4 p.m. loser plays the 1 p.m. winner at 7 in a loser-out game.

"I was really happy with the way we came out," Prairie coach Brian Fowler said. "Good intensity, good focus. That's a good team, and when you play good teams, you're going to lose some."

Fowler said that L-C's bats were hot.

"I think that that's just a good-hitting team right there," Fowler said. "We were making good pitches and they were still hitting it a lot of the time. In a couple of their big innings early, they had a couple of doubles in the gap. They were good curveballs - first pitch. They're just a good ball club. I'm impressed with what Allen (Balmer) has going on over there. It's just a tough one to lose but there's not a whole lot that I think we could have done differently."

Prairie put up five runs in the second inning and led 5-3 after two innings. The Twins rallied back with four runs in the third inning to go back up 7-5. Chris Kirkeby's RBI single in the sixth brought Prairie within one and Porter's RBI double in the seventh tied the game at seven.

But Porter is now focused on today's game.

"Just come out and work hard tomorrow," Porter said. "That's all you really can do."

Prairie 050 001 100 - 7 11 3

Lewis-Clark 214 000 001 - 8 13 3

One out when winning run scored.

Jacob Elliott, Jared Porter (7) and Jerrett Plunkett; Zack Ricard, Logan Chase (6), Austen Jones (8) and Cole Grijalva, Jessup Scott (8). W - Jones. L - Porter (2-8).

HITS: Pra - Lebsock 2, Lozier 2, Bailey, Porter 2, Benson 2, Elliott, Kirkeby. L-C - Scott, Gay, Moore, White 2, Tibbits 2, Phillips, Jones 2, Olson 3. 2B - Porter, Scott, Moore, White, Tibbits, Jones.