The Virden Oilers’ baseball season has come to an end.
The South West Baseball League team lost two games to none in its best-of-three first round series to the Hamiota Red Sox. Hamiota, the division’s top seed with a 13-2 record, beat Virden 6-0 and 5-1.
“The main difference in the playoffs was our inability to score runs,” said Des Koop, who handles player/manager duties with Brett Braybrook. “Also, errors were a factor.”
Oilers Fourth
The Oilers posted a 7-8 regular season record to place fourth in the SWBL North Division. Koop expressed appreciation for the great fans who turned out to support the team this season.
While the Oilers certainly had big wins and exciting plays, Braybrook said it’s the teammates that he enjoyed the most about the 2018 campaign.
“It is a team sport obviously and being able to play alongside a majority of the same guys for the past four years and sharing laughs after the game has been great,” he said.
The veteran player also enjoyed having his sons, Avery and Jax, attend the games and be bat boys as often as they could.
“The players are so amazing to my children and for that my boys look up to a number of those men,” Braybrook said.
Playoffs
Hamiota scored all of its runs at home in the first two innings – including five in the second frame – on July 11 to win 6-0 and take a 1-0 lead in the series.
Hamiota’s Taylor Madsen allowed six hits but no runs over seven innings. Virden’s Jeff Peel allowed seven hits and struck out five.
In Virden on July 13, Justin Holder drove in a run in the second inning to stake Virden to a 1-0 lead. Hamiota came back with four runs in the top of the third and added one in the seventh to win 5-1 and sweep the short series.
Curtis Plett struck out six for the Oilers and allowed eight hits. Hamiota hurler Brady Waddell held Virden to one run on four hits.
In the other North Division series, Oak River and Rivers were tied 1-1, as of Monday, with game three being played on Tuesday. In the South, Boissevain swept Souris 17-5 and 13-5. The Centennials will play the Deloraine Royals, who rallied from a 1-0 series deficit to win 2-1.
