Milleteers drop close one to Camrose

The Milleteers failed to capitalize on the gift that the last place Tofield Lakers gave them last week as they pulled out their first win of the year against the Camrose Road Runners to give the Milleteers sole possession on first place. The low scoring defensive struggle had to be one of the quickest games in PBL history as it took less than 90 minutes to get the game in. If it weren’t for the sixth inning it would have been even shorter.

 

 

The game started with familiar foes on the mound as Camrose’s Steve Offrim was making his third start of the year against the Milleteers, while Leduc started veteran hurler Scott Peterson. Both pitchers were very efficient as they produced ground ball, after ground ball, coupled with no deep counts or walks, it made for very short innings. Offrim scattered five hits over seven innings, while striking out five and walking none. 

 

Peterson was just as effective as he only allowed one walk and two hits, both to the number eight hitter. The last hit would come back to bite the Milleteers as it lead off the pivotal sixth inning. After the hit a bloop fly ball down the left field line was dropped by All Star third baseman Trevor Pahl. He promptly picked it up and threw it to second to get the force out, only to see it skip away off target and with a bit of bad luck it went through a gap in the fence to plate the run. 

 

The next hitter promptly hit a grounder to short stop Greg Jackson, who had many a number of great plays up until that point, only to see him throw it away to plate Camrose’s second run. After a walk Peterson was lifted after a good performance to be relieved by rubber armed rookie Ryan Walker. After pitching eight innings only three days earlier, Walker was effective, as he got out of the jam unscathed.

 

The Milleteers went down in the seventh the way the have gone down most of the year. After getting a couple hits to get runners on, they failed to produce a run scoring single, and it finally caught up with them as they blew a chance to distance themselves from the pack and secure home field advantage in the playoffs. Now they have to face a hungry third place Ryley team tomorrow and try to hold serve until they get a chance to play Camrose again in the second last game of the year in Leduc on July 8th.

 

Posted on June 24, 2009 by Steven Pahl