For the third time this post season, an IABL Championship game went to extra innings.

This time it was the 35+ Championship with the Astros and Stallions renewing a rivalry that dates back 15 years when the Stallions were the Indy Giants and the Astros were the Plainfield Patriots.

In a highly competitive, closely contested game it was the Stallions coming from behind to win it 11-10 in 10 innings.

It was a game with timely hitting, and much better pitching than the score would indicate.

The pitchers for both sides threw well enough to win but they were all put in terrible positions by their defenses.  With a total of 13 errors, and 10 unearned runs it wasn’t a pretty game.  Probably the biggest victim was Keith Oehlman who did everything he could to protect the lead, but was done in by the Astros 7 errors in the last three innings.

The Stallions started the scoring in the first when John Smith lifted a 2 run Home Run over the head of the left fielder.  After that, Astros pitcher Joe Striewe got his curve ball working and kept the Stallions off balance, allowing only 1 more run through 5 innings.

Bryan Apolskis took the hill for the Stallions and cruised through the first 3 innings, but then ran into trouble in the fourth.  Facing the meat of the Astro order he allowed 3 runs on a Sac Fly by Troy Aeschelman and a 2 run bomb off the bat of Oehlman to tie the game.

In the fifth the Astros scored 3 unearned runs on 3 Stallion errors that chased Apolskis and brought in Rick Davis to stop the bleeding by inducing a fly ball for the final out.

The Astros held the 3 run lead until the 7^th inning when their defense decided to take the rest of the night off, making two errors that led to two unearned runs to cut the lead to 6-5.

The Astros roared back in the 8^th  when the first 3 batters reached base on a walk and 2 errors and then Jeff Buell put one in the tall corn at Trinity for a Grand Slam and a 5 run lead.

The Astros were breathing a little easier being out of “slam range” but the Stallions weren’t done, scoring 3 in the bottom of the 8^th with RBI by Troy Drosche, Apolskis, and Brett Brandenburg.

Unfortunately for Rick Davis he was not the pitcher of record when the winning run was scored.  With the 5 inning rule in the 35+Division, he was forced to leave the game with 2 out in the top of the 10^th and give way to Brandenburg to pick up the win facing only one batter.  More important than winning a game was the fact that Rick was returning to the mound after coming back from an injury at work that put him in a coma and threatened his life.   It was fortunate for Rick that he was able to even walk much less play baseball.  It’s a great comeback story that should serve as a reminder to us all that while winning it all is great, and individual accomplishments are fun, there are more important things in the world and that while baseball is the greatest game,

it is.. just...a…game.