By TOBY CARRIG ~ Semoball.com

For Anheuser-Busch Post 299, this year's American Legion zone tournament has nothing to do with proving itself worthy.

This time, the A-B players believe they're due.

After two years as the zone runner-up to Festus, Anheuser-Busch manager Mike Clifton believes his team is ready to take the big step this time around. And there's nowhere he'd rather be trying to get that elusive state berth than Jackson.

"I wanted Mark [Lewis] to host this from the beginning," Clifton said as he watched the Jackson manager water the field before the second game of Thursday's zone-opening twinbill. "He's a classy guy who runs a legitimate program and was an outstanding host in 2005.

"There's nothing like coming down here and dealing with really good people."

In 2005, A-B was an underdog team that came through the zone's losers bracket to beat Festus once before bowing to the eventual state champion in the deciding game. A-B came through the elimination bracket again last year before being ousted by Festus.

"The past two years, we've lost the first game and had to play through the losers bracket, which pretty much sucks," said shortstop James Johndrew.

Johndrow, a 2007 graduate of Gateway Tech in St. Louis, helped make sure that wasn't the case this year by belting a two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning that was the difference in A-B's 7-5 victory against Manchester (31-5).

Anheuser-Busch (31-17) advanced directly to the winners bracket game set for 8 tonight at Legion Field.

That will be the fourth game of the day with the previous three knocking out two teams and determing whether Jackson, Rock Memorial or Dunklin County will face A-B.

Post 299 had some incentive for winning beyond repeating the recent trend of first-round losses.

"I told them it was really easy," Clifton said. "Either they could sleep in, have lunch at Lambert's, have a light batting practice and play under the lights or they could get up at 7:30 in the morning, play in 100 degree heat and have to win two games. It was pretty simple motivation."

The rest between games -- the loser of Thursday's Jackson-Rock game is back on the field at 10:30 a.m. -- might give Clifton and Johndrow a chance to compete in another forum.

"I told him to bring his chess board," Clifton said. "He loves competing on daily basis. The motto at the end of his text message is 'Hate to lose.' You love to have bulldogs like that. In the crunch, they can do something special, and his big hit was something special."

Manchester saw an end to its winning streak of eight games, which included four to sweep the District 10 (St. Louis County) title.

Post 208 trailed 2-0 after three innings. After tying the game with two in the fourth, it pulled ahead 4-3 on Matt Crowley's two-run homer in the fifth.

Manchester knotted the score with a run in the top of the eighth, setting the table for Johndrew's homer, which came on the first pitch with a hit-and-run called.

While Manchester came in with a goal of being the first District 10 team to win a state title since 1985, A-B was overlooked as the team from the city of St. Louis.

"That's why we play the schedule we play to get ready for this," Clifton said. "We want to play the best teams. I feel my kids have been there and done that."

Now, Clifton wants them to do something they haven't been able to do the last two years: finish the job at zone.