FRANKLIN – There were plenty of tears in Bowling Green East’s dugout Thursday.

Some of that was due to a season-ending 8-4 loss to Owensboro Southern in the 9- and 10-year-olds District 1 tournament championship, but just a part.

It wasn’t the ending the team had hoped for after pulling together under manager Jef Goodnight, whose son – 10-year-old Mason – would have been a member of this team had he not passed away suddenly April 6.

This group helped Jef Goodnight cope with his grief more than they probably knew.

“I’m going to continue to coach,” Goodnight said. “To me, this is my therapy and it helps … this is his age group, he would’ve been on this team, and so yeah, I’ll be out here coaching and hopefully we’ll be back here next season.”

Bowling Green East got into early trouble, falling behind 5-0 after two innings before Luke Idlett came on in relief to steady the pitching.

BG East started to chip away from there, as Evan Schallert got his team on the board in the bottom of the second with a sacrifice fly RBI and Matthew Escalera drove in another run with an RBI groundout in the third.

Escalera struck again in the bottom of the fifth, stroking a two-run double that got his team back within two runs at 6-4.

Owensboro Southern answered back with two more runs in the top of the sixth and held on from there for the win.

“We got in a hole and our bats … they’d been going all tournament long, and today they just didn’t show up for us,” Goodnight said. “That’s the amazing, great thing about baseball – you get in a one-game scenario, your bats don’t go, your pitchers don’t hit spots, you can get in trouble. And their pitchers pitched amazing.”

Luke Idlett and Escalera paced the offense with two hits apiece.

“I’m so proud of our team,” Goodnight said. “They played a heckuva an all-star season. We played a couple other tournaments, and this is the only game they’ve lost. Runner-up in district, it’ll make them hungrier next year and I’m proud of every one of them.”