COREY CRISSONE Coach Travis Clary is fond of saying that pitching and defense wins championships.

His junior Post 109 American Legion team was missing one of those two in an extra-inning 4-2 loss to Florence in the state tournament on Thursday.

Gaffney, which opened the tournament on Wednesday with a 4-3 victory over Marion, plays an elimination game today at 5 p.m. against either Lancaster or host Lake City.

Florence capitalized on a couple of costly throwing errors by Post 109 to score the winning runs in the eighth inning.

"We made two big mental mistakes," Clary said.

The mistakes spoiled a strong pitching performance by Corey Crissone, who game up four runs and 11 hits in 7 2/3 innings. Joey Copeland got the final out in the eighth for Post 109.

Crissone helped his own cause with a secondinning solo home down the leftfield line that staked Post 109 to a 1-0 lead.

Florence tied the game in the third inning and went ahead 2-1 with a run in the fifth.

Gaffney tied it at 2 all in the sixth on consecutive doubles by Dylan Huskey and Jared Mills.

Michael Wright had two of Post 109's five hits in the game.

In the opener against Marion, Wright tossed a four-hitter and struck out seven to earn the victory.

Gaffney scored three runs in the third on Nick Smiley's RBI single and a double by Ryan Frock that knocked in two runs.

Alex Trammell's single scored Smiley to put Gaffney up 4-2 in the sixth inning.

Marion rallied for a run in the seventh but Wright shut the door for the win.