For our last game of the season, we faced the Oakdale Royals. Again.

We faced these guys in the Summerfest tournament, where they beat us 11-2 in round 1 on the way to the championship. Then we saw them again in the last game of the regular season, where they beat us 21-1. They’ve been riding two really good pitchers in every game we’ve seen, and we saw them again this time around. Just like in the Summerfest tournament, their starter pitched three and came back to close it out, with their shortstop pitching the 4th, 5th and 6th. The two of them combined for a no-hitter. We got just two baserunners all game – Alex worked a walk to start the 3rd (batting in the 7th spot in the order this time), and Nate beat out a dropped third strike in the 5th. Both of them stole 2nd and 3rd, but we couldn’t get them across the plate.

As you might guess, since we didn’t score any runs, we didn’t win. Alex started and pitched well, giving up 6 runs in three innings (and yes, an 18.00 ERA for a single game is good against this team!). He started the 4th, but he was tired and not finding his release point, so Craig pulled him and put in Marco after Alex walked one of the Royals on 4 pitches, two of which were over the catcher’s head.

The guys played well in the field, but the Royals are great hitters, and kept hitting the line drives into the outfield. We missed a couple of plays and gave them some extra outs, and they didn’t return the favor. We stuck with it, though, and kept them to 8 runs, giving us our best showing against them defensively all year.

Final score: Royals 8, Ironpigs 0

Season record: 9-3, 6th place

Tournament record: 1-2, 4th place