First-ever over-the-fence home run at Tiger Field
The Tigers went 1-2 over the final week of the regular season to finish right at the .500 mark (10-10) for the 2011 campaign. They also split their 14 Missota Conference games to earn a fourth-place tie in the league standings.
Farmington started the week slowly, dropping a 9-0 decision at Chanhassen. They bounced back on Thursday to blank Red Wing 3-0 at Tiger Field before losing their regular season finale 8-5 at Lakeville South the following day.
Nothing much went right at Chanhassen with the visitors making five errors and managing just three hits against the Storm.
"Chanhassen played a great game and we had five errors," coach Rob Laden said. "Not a good combination."
Alyssa Kalmes, Ashley Betzold and Taylor Haakana accounted for the Farmington hits, all singles.
Betzold bounced back from a sub-par pitching performance on Tuesday, firing a six-hitter and striking out eight on the way to her fifth shutout of the season.
The contest was tied heading into the home half of the fifth when Kalmes and Allie Rice rapped doubles to get the home team on the board.
The winners added two more scores in the sixth, the first on Aleah Williamson's second home run of the season and the second on Kalmes' rbi double. Williamson's blast marked the first time a ball had cleared the fence at the new Tiger Field.
Off-and-on rain plagued Friday's first annual battle for the Cat Fight Trophy, a gold cup adorned with Tiger and Cougar bobbleheads.
South led all the way after jumping to a 3-0 lead after two innings, but the Tigers made it interesting.
They pulled to within 3-1 in the fourth on Ton Hunsinger's run-scoring double and 3-2 in the fifth on Alyssa Hagen's rbi single.
After South went up 5-2, Haakana's single cut the deficit to two runs before the Cougars took advantage of three Farmington errors to score three runs in the sixth.
Farmington loaded the bases in the seventh on singles by Hagen, Betzold and Hunsinger but with two out, Paige Lindrud's long fly ball was caught just in front of the fence in left field.
"Our downfall this year has been an inning or two of errors and we did that again against South," Laden said.
Seeding for the Section 1AAA tournament will take place on Monday with the first games played Wednesday at the higher seed. The four winners from Wednesday's games advance to a double-elimination tournament at Austin beginning, Friday, May 27.
