4 RBI in back-to-back 5-4 losses
Farmington closed the books on its 2011 regular season with back-to-back, 5-4 road losses to Lakeville South and Hastings Monday and Tuesday.
The tough-luck Tigers finished the season with a 4-16 record, including a 3-11 mark in the Missota Conference, good enough for a seventh place finish in the eight-team league.
Monday in Lakeville, first inning rbi singles by Ty Vincent and Zak Payne staked Tiger starter Zach Wallace to a 2-0 lead but the Cougars countered with a run in the second and three in the fourth to to take the lead for good.
Payne smacked a solo homer in the sixth for the third Tiger score and Vincent singled in a run in the seventh for the final Farmington run.
Wallace took the pitching loss, working the first four innings and allowing all five Cougar runs, including pair of home runs. Dayne Eich came on in the fifth and worked two innings of scoreless relief.
"We played a clean game defensively (no errors) and pretty clean on the hill," Winters said. "We left a couple of pitches up and they took advantage of it with the homers...They did a better job of getting the big hit. They gave us chances but we didn't capitalize."
If Monday's loss was hard to swallow, Tuesday's must have been like ingesting a 16-ounce T-bone in one bite.
The Tigers led the Raiders 4-2 heading into the bottom of the fifth when Nathan Graham apparently made a clean catch of a fly ball in deep centerfield. But Graham dropped the ball in exchanging it from his glove to his throwing hand and the umpire ruled it a no-catch.
A hit-batsman and two errors later, Hastings had a 5-4 lead that would hold up the rest of the way.
"We deserved to win and Jonathan Ellis (starting pitcher) deserved to win," Winters said. "We should have been out of the inning with no runs...But that's baseball. Stuff like that happens that we can't control."
The Tigers roared to a 3-0 lead in the first inning on a single by Jake Baskerville, a double by Sebren Baer, a sacrifice fly by Vincent and run-scoring hits by John Stibal and Nick Newman.
A walk to Baskerville, a single by Baer and Vincent's sacrifice fly produced the final Tiger run in the second.
Ellis again pitched well for the Tigers, surrendering just three hits and two earned runs over six innings.
Farmington now awaits the Section 1AAA seeding process to see where it will open first round play on Saturday, May 28.
