Royals Take Game One In Extras

What a game, what a finish. Fans were treated to an exciting finish to the first game of the 2019 Powerline Baseball League Championship on Thursday night as the Armena Royals emerged with a 2-0 victory over the Holden Blue Jays in eight innings. 

Veteran Royals player Doug Morris is growing his legend status in Armena after being the hero in game three of their Semi-Final Series win over the Rosalind Athletics and now the hero of their game one victory over the Jays in the PBL Championship Series. Arriving in the seventh inning, Morris would slide into the lineup in the top of the eighth inning in a 0-0 ball game to deliver the game winning two run double off of Jays pitcher Kyle Muzechka. 

Muzechka would take the loss throwing 8 innings for the Jays allowing seven hits, striking out four and walking three. Earning the win was Ian Sherbaniuk who would throw a complete game shutout over the Jays allowing only five hits. The Ziegler’s would account for four of those hits with Colten picking up two and Alan and Randall each chipping in with one hit as well. Muzechka would also add a hit to round out the offensive production for the Jays. Sherbaniuk did a masterful job keeping the Jays off balance at the plate and limiting solid contact all night.

With only two runs scored, game one became the lowest scoring PBL Championship game in the last seventeen seasons. The previous lowest scoring game was five runs scored which has been accomplished four times, most recently in 2014 when the Ryley Rebels defeated the Holden Blue Jays in game three of their PBL Championship Series by a score of 3-2. 

Game one was originally scheduled to be in Vegreville however due to rainfall overnight, and despite a valiant effort from the Vegreville grounds crew, the game was moved to the Holden Recreation Grounds. 

The second game of the series will be on Tuesday August 6 in Armena with the first pitch at Anniversary Park scheduled for 7:00pm. If the Jays can win, the series will shift back to Vegreville on Thursday August 8. If the Royals win, Armena will have successfully defended their championship and earned the franchises first back to back titles since 2003-2004.