Bantam Sox struggle against Rudyard

Just one night after a strong performance both offensively and defensively, the Elks 341 Black Sox struggled at both on Wednesday night.

Facing a Rudyard team that had a team made of predominately older players than their Black Sox counterparts, the Black Sox dropped a 15-4 decision. The loss came after the locals gave up 10 runs in the top of the seventh inning.

A strong performance through six innings saw the Black Sox trailing by a 5-4 score.

"They played solid for six innings and then the mental errors came back in the seventh inning unfortunately," said Black Sox coach Chris Walls. "It's unfortunate. It seems to bite us pretty hard every now and again. It's not something small. When one wheel falls off, they all come off."

Ben Elliot walked three times and added a single for the locals while Scott Thornton also chipped in with a pair of walks in the loss.

Walls noted that pitcher Ryan Olar was solid in the game. Olar pitched all seven innings for the Black Sox and managed to keep the game close until Rudyard broke things open in the seventh.

The locals had little information on the Rudyard team heading into the game. Walls said he was impressed with their play in the victory.

"This was the first time we played them this year," Walls said. "They're 14 through 16 (years old). They're a good, sound, fundamental team. Their infield is unreal. They looked so smooth."

The Black Sox are in Mancelona, Michigan this weekend for a tournament that opens on Saturday. The Black Sox play three games on Saturday. They open their schedule at noon against Mancelona and also play Kalkaska at 2 p.m. and Boyne City at 6 p.m. The semi-finals and championship games are set for Sunday.

"We know quite a bit (about the other teams in the tournament)," Walls said. "We've done some scouting. We feel comfortable going in/ The question mark playing that many games is do you have enough arms to get by? I think we should be okay. There's only really one team we don't really know much about. Other than that we've got enough scouting on these teams to feel comfortable going into the tournament."