Southern Indiana Spikes

The Southern Indiana Spikes 9U team won the Baseball Players Association Northern Zone World Series held in Owensboro, Kentucky July 26th - 30th. The team started the series on Thursday with wins over the Kentucky Bobcats and the Western Kentucky Bulldogs. Then on Friday, they defeated the Evansville Triplets in their only game of the day. This moved them into the championship game of the "winners bracket" slated for Saturday evening. This game would not turn out as well as the previous games for the Spike 9U's as they were defeated by the Evansville Spikes. This forced the team into the losers bracket and potentially one loss away from tournament elimination. The Spikes then would need to win three straight games to come back. They then beat the Evansville Triplets for the second time in the series. This set the stage for the finals: Southern Indiana Spikes vs. the Evansville Spikes in the Championship game on Sunday. The first game was a nail bitter with the Southern Indiana Spikes winning 4-2. This forced the "if needed" winner take all final game. That game held up the billing as a championship game at it's finest. Evansville took the lead 1 -0 in the first inning and added another run in the second inning. The Spikes then took the lead 3-2 in the third inning. Evansville scored two more runs to take the lead 4-3 in the top of the 5th inning. This put the Southern Indiana Spikes with their backs against the wall down to their last three outs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Trevor Lehr then hit a lead off single to start the last inning. Tyler Ward then followed up with another single to put runners on first and second. Gavin Schaefer hit an one RBI single to center field to pull the Spikes within one run. With runners on first and second Mason Becher sacrifice bunted and moved the runners to second and third with one out. Caleb Sabelhaus then steps to the plate with a game winning double for a final score of 6-5. The Spikes 9U finish their season with a final record of 33-10. The Southern Indiana Spikes 9U's competed in 10 tournaments and placed either first or second in eight of those ten. Way to go Spikes 9U!!!