The Valley City Royals began their tournament with a pair of forgettable outing against Carrington and Grafton dropping both games by a combined 22-2. In both contest fielding was an issue with eight errors being committed between the first two games for Valley City.

A day of rain on Saturday would wash away any chance of games, so all participants would come in with freshly rested legs, and arms. As it turns out a day of rest would be just what the doctor ordered for a Royals team that was riding a long losing streak.

Sunday afternoon it would be the final game of the tournament for Valley City as they would host the L.A.W Rattlers who in their previous game came back to walk off Grafton 4-3. All hands would need to be on deck for the Royals as they tried to salvage a win to close out the tournament =.

Max Mehus would lock up the Rattlers pitching two perfect innings and striking out four before being relieved by Robert Fischer in the third. Fischer would allow one run in the third before Bentley Thornton caught a would be base stealer to end the inning.

The Royals would use guile and aggressiveness to claw their way in front in the bottom of the third as Gavin Gerhardt stole the first of five bases for the Royals to move up to second and would come home to score after a wild pitch to tie the game. Broden Muske would then score after Jack Samuelson tied up the defense between first and second during a run down allowing just enough time for the go-ahead run to come across before being tagged out.

Fischer would get through one more inning before handing the ball off to Corbin Powell who provide two innings off scoreless relief, while also stealing three bases on the day and coming around to score off a Will Schwehr double. Robert Fischer would provide one more insurance run in the sixth with a line drive single that would give the Royals a 4-1 lead going into the seventh.

Gavin Gerhardt would be the man tasked with closing out the game for Valley City. Gerhardt would sit the first batter down before allowing the next two men to reach scoring position after a wild pitch. Gerhardt would then secure a strikeout before a lazy fly ball to right would give Valley City a 4-1 win.

The Valley City pitching staff didn’t surrender an earned run during the game while punching out ten batters against only one walk, and surrendered only one hit. Taking the win was Robert Fischer while Gavin Gerhardt recorded his first save of the season.