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Baseball Comes Home

After eight years, baseball found its way back to Virden, as the Oilers baseball team concluded their inaugural season on July 13, 2015. For the Oilers, home soil proved to be an advantage during the season.
Baseball Comes Home
Jeff Peel Pitching for The Virden Oilers vs The Jays.

After eight years, baseball found its way back to Virden, as the Oilers baseball team concluded their inaugural season on July 13, 2015.

For the Oilers, home soil proved to be an advantage during the season. Des Koop, the team’s player-manager, stated in an email interview, “The attendance at the games was great. We were not sure what to expect but the whole community showed great support and by far we had the largest and most supportive fans in the whole league. The other teams in the league couldn’t believe the fan support that we received.”

This season the Oilers played 16 regular season games and two playoff games, and the team finished the regular season with a 9-7 record. Going into the playoffs the Oilers had one goal in mind: home field advantage. It was a close call for the Oilers, missing it in a formula tie breaker.

“Many of the games we lost were close, we lost four games by two runs, the league is so competitive that we easily could have finished in [the] top spot with a few extra hits,” Koop expressed.

The Oilers made the quarterfinals of playoffs against Hamiota, but the best-of-three series would come to a close in two games. Hamiota won the series with two shutout victories against the Oilers.

Koop stated, “Now that we have had a year to play together as a team and learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses I believe we will be a better team as a whole.”

With an extremely successful first season under their belt, the Oilers look to up their standards for next season. Koop said it was difficult for the team at times, as they did a lot of work to the diamond, which took away from some of their practice time.

Koop ended the interview stating, “The team is looking forward to next season and getting the team back in town couldn't [have] been done without the help of [our] great sponsors, the Town of Virden, and all of the great fans that showed their great support for the team throughout the whole season.”

Caps off to everyone for the wonderful support and the team for a great season.

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