Effingham Post 120 has some serious work to do if it expects to still be playing Sunday in the Mattoon Senior American Legion Firecracker Classic. A collectively listless Effingham club paid for that uninspired approach in Wednesday's opener at Lake Land College's Laker Field, a 10-1 whipping at the hands of Kansas Post 539. Falling to 0-1 in Pool C competition, Effingham (21-8) can't afford another loss; the three pool winners and one wild card out of the remaining 12 teams advance to Sunday's semifinals.

Post 120 stranded eight baserunners and surrendered four unearned runs to Kansas, which is actually composed mainly of Charleston athletes.

"Apparently I didn't have this team prepared to play," said Post 120 Manager Kenny Miller, whose team split with Kansas earlier in the season with several junior legion fill-ins taking the place of Effingham High School athletes that were still participating in their school season.

"I think that was pretty obvious. I'll take my share of the blame right along with everybody else. I'm not pushing the right buttons and I take responsibility for that. It's my job and I didn't do it. We had a long talk after the game, but we haven't come up with any answers."

Alex Westendorf was saddled with the pitching defeat, although he pitched well enough to have a shutout going for three innings.

Instead, Kansas led 3-0 after two, getting one across in the first on a leadoff dinker to center from Derek Hennig, a sacrifice bunt and an equally soft single to center off the bat of cleanup man Lando Bass.

Westendorf fanned the first two hitters in the second — although the second took 10 pitches — only to have a long fly ball to right dropped for a three-base error.

After Westendorf walked the No. 9 hitter, Hennig made it hurt with an RBI single. The second unearned tally of the frame came across on a double steal with runners on first and third.

It took only seven pitches for Westendorf to get out of a 1-2-3 third, but with 60 pitches he was already running out of gas as he surrendered back-to-back doubles from Taylor Nead and James Addison. Another run scored when Hennig ripped an infield single back to the mound and off the Effingham hurler to make it 5-0.

Tyler Ohnesorge took over the pitching duties in the fifth without allowing a score, and Post 120 showed some life when Jordan Amlong laced a one-out double and scored on a Chase Green two-bagger.

Amlong and Green were both 2-for-3 on the day; both of Green's hits were doubles. That run in the fifth was all Post 120 could muster against Cam Phipps, however, as the Kansas righthander scattered eight hits, seven strikeouts and three walks over seven innings and 122 pitches.

Prior to the fifth, Effingham came up empty on a couple good scoring opportunities.

In the third, Ben Sherrick worked a leadoff walk and Ohnesorge, the courtesy runner, moved to third on Chase Green's first double of the day. Derek Meinhart followed with an opposite-field flyout to deep left, and Ohnesorge never touched the plate as Bass had the plate blocked perfectly and tagged him with the relay throw.

Chad Green managed an 0-2 single with one out in the fourth and took third on Cody McCollum's double, but Ben Mehl went down swinging and Marty Jansen flew out to center to halt the threat.

Kansas led 6-1 heading into its final raps in the seventh and ended up batting around for four runs. The first two were legitimate on back-to-back two-out RBI singles from Phipps and Hennig, while the final two scored via errors on the infield.

Having surrendered a ton of runs in the opening loss, Effingham needs to not only win its final three pool play games, but win them by holding the opponents' run totals down as the runs-allowed tiebreaker usually comes into play when deciding either pool winners or wild card teams.

Today's 3:30 p.m. opponent at Grimes Field in Peterson Park is the Central Illinois Chiefs, a Windsor-based junior legion team and last-second addition when Olney backed out of the tourney at the last minute.