Post 45 prepares to host Southeast Regional Tournament after falling out of playoffs

ASHEBORO — After experiencing down-to-the-wire thrilling finishes, blowouts on both sides and a number of must-win contests, Randolph County Post 45 is in the midst of a short break before returning to prepare for the 2025 American Legion Southeast Regional Tournament, which will take place Aug. 6 through 10 at McCrary Park.

It will be the 12th straight year Post 45 and the Asheboro Coastal Plain League team have served as hosts and it will be the last for at least the next rotation as Cherryville has been selected to host the 2026 and 2027 regional tournaments.

Post 45 captured playoff series wins over Chatham County and Mooresville this summer before falling to Union County 3-1 in the best-of-five Area III semifinal series.

Union County and Rowan County will represent Area III in this weekend’s North Carolina State Tournament in Cherryville.

Post 45’s season came to end July 16 with a 2-1 loss in Game 4 of that series with Union County after failing to make the playoffs last season.

“A good thing is the fact we played this long, we’ll have a much shorter break between now and regionals,” veteran Post 45 coach Ronnie Pugh said. “We’ll take a few days off and get back at it. We’ll get healthy and rested.”

Post 45, which was 11-12 last summer and then lost two straight at the SER to finish 11-14, turned things around in a big way in 2025. Randolph County was 9-1 in capturing the Area III Division II championship and then won playoff series over Chatham County and Mooresville before being eliminated by Union County. Post 45 will bring a 23-8 record into the SER.

“I told these kids every day I looked forward to coming out here,” Pugh said. “They are a good crowd and they play hard. They are willing to make adjustments and it’s really been enjoyable this whole summer. We became better as the year went on.”

After earning the overall top seed in Area III, Post 45 started the playoffs with a sweep of Chatham County, although Game 2 was anything but easy. A 10-0 win in five innings gave Post 45 a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series before the teams traveled to McCrary Park for Game 2.

Post 45 eked out a 7-6 win in nail-biting fashion, but Chatham County coach Bryce Marsh, a Southwestern Randolph High School graduate and former star player for Post 45, had his team ready.

Mooresville surprised Post 45 with a Game 1 win in the second round of the playoffs, another best two-out-of-three series, by the score of 9-6. That game had to be completed just prior to Game 2 because of a protest filed by Post 45. That centered around a pitcher not getting the mandated number of days off between appearances.

Post 45 answered the bell in the must-win Game 2, recording a 12-4 win, before an edge-of-your-seat thriller in Game 3. Post 45 trailed 6-2 in the fifth inning before a two-run homer from Carter Brown helped chip the deficit to 6-5. Post 45 scored in the seventh to tie the game before Mooresville pushed across a run in the 10th for a 7-6 lead. But Post 45 rallied with two runs in their half of the 10th for a season-saving 8-7 win.

The reward was a date with Union County, which earned a 5-3 win in 8 innings in Game 1.

“We played back-to-back 10- and 8-inning games and that wrecked our pitching a little,” Pugh said. “But we had some guys step up and pitch some good innings.”

Union County rolled in Game 2 14-3 in five innings before Post 45 won another do-or-die game, 13-6, in Game 3 of the best-of-five series.

“All we were trying to do was win Tuesday to get to Wednesday and win Wednesday to get to Thursday,” Pugh said. “We got to Wednesday, but getting into those must-win games, you might have used people one or two days earlier than you wanted.”

A tough 2-1 loss ended the playoff run.

“I think this is a team that played all aspects of the game,” Pugh said. “We didn’t always play them all at the same time, but we could definitely do some things.”

Randolph County and the North Carolina State champion, the state champion and runner-up teams from South Carolina, state champions from Kentucky, Alabama, Florida and then Puerto Rico will make up the eight-team SER field.

“We’ve talked about it and certainly the ones who played in it the last year or two have influenced the thinking and said how much fun they had,” Pugh said of the SER. “We’ll start back to practice and go back now knowing each other.”

The winner of the SER advances to the American Legion World Series in Shelby. Post 45 won the SER in 2017, 2018 and 2019.