COLONIAL HEIGHTS -- Ronnie Shaban's body finally gave up.

For the third straight weekend, he gave his all in five straight baseball games for South Richmond Post 137. The mental and physical exhaustion finally caught up as he stole second last night, injuring his ankle as he slid into the base.

And yet, even as his body quit working, Shaban did not. He limped off the field seven innings later to a standing ovation, finishing with a hit and two walks without the services of a left ankle.

In the 15th round of a brutal fight, a dazed and wobbling South Richmond was the last team standing -- and they're going to the World Series.

Needing just one victory, South Richmond lost 15-4 to Edison, N.J., in the first game of the American Legion Mid-Atlantic Region tournament, then staged a remarkable late comeback to win 20-12 in the nearly four-hour nightcap.

Shaban wasn't the only one feeling the pain. Pitcher Hunter Ackerman had to leave the first game because of dehydration, paving the way for a run-rule victory by Edison.

Neither team had a pitcher left, creating a slugfest in the evening game. Edison opened with an eight-run lead, but South Richmond chipped away, and as the lead was within sight, received another gutsy performance.

Blake Hauser, who threw six innings Saturday night, took the mound. His fastball was too much for Edison, which whiffed its way through the final two innings.

Hauser himself put an emphatic stamp on the game with a three-RBI triple in the decisive eighth inning.

By winning, South Richmond advances to the American Legion World Series, beginning Friday in Shelby, N.C.

The team opens the double-elimination tournament Friday at approximately 1:30 p.m. against Midland, Mich.

The South Richmond comeback was not a one-inning slugfest but rather a culmination of several small innings, each of which ended with more missed opportunities. The team left two runners on base in the fourth, sixth and seventh, though they were able to get runs in each of those innings.

Earlier in the day, South Richmond let opportunities slip away in a game that turned abruptly toward Edison in the seventh inning.

Stephen Nappe, Edison's best player throughout the weekend, hit a grand slam. From there, it was just a formality as the team marched to the run-rule victory.

The nightcap was the opposite. Facing exhausted pitching, the South Richmond coaches urged patience. Instead, the players started taking their cuts.

Chris Hardee swung at 12 of the 13 pitches he was given. He finished with 4 hits and 6 RBI. Dustin Sollars had the patience, picking 2 hits and 3 walks. Chris Ayers and Nick Abrahamson each had 4 runs.

Shaban didn't have the distinguished stat line, but he had the awe of his teammates.

And while Virginia Tech baseball coach Pete Hughes may not be thrilled to hear of the injury -- he typically likes his incoming freshmen to arrive in one piece -- swapping a bad ankle for an oversized heart seems like a fair trade. Contact Michael Phillips at mphillips@timesdispatch.com.