The Valley City Royals and the West Fargo Vets braved the elements in game one of their doubleheader, with Valley City picking up the 10-7 win.
Valley City starting pitcher Will Schwehr managed to labor through a 20-pitch first inning, throwing up a scoreless frame before turning it over to his offense. The Royals would strike for three runs in the first, capitalizing off a handful of West Fargo mistakes. Mistakes would be aplenty for both sides in the game, with both sides combining for 11 total errors.
The Vets would respond in the second with three runs of their own, with Valley City allowing three unearned runs in the frame. But the Royals would not waste any time getting those runs back, striking for four more in the second bottom of the second, staking themselves to a 7-3 lead.
West Fargo would chip away at the deficit, tacking on one run in the third and fourth innings. However, their surge would be halted by the pitching of Gavin Gerhardt, who guided the Royals through the game’s middle stages. The Royals would add on some much-needed insurance in the bottom of the sixth with Jack Samuelson and Will Schwehr picking up RBIs, with Trevor Fetsch staying alive on base paths long enough to bring in Will Schwehr to score from third before the inning came to a close.
The Vets would make things interesting in the seventh, grinding out a couple of runs with a handful of infield singles, bringing the go-ahead run to the plate. But a flyball to Samuelson would bring the chaotic game to a close as Valley City picked up the 10-7 win.
The second game of the day began with both teams trading scoreless innings until the top of the third when the Vets scraped across a run to take an early 1-0 lead. West Fargo would double their advantage in the next frame before Andrew Sykora pushed across the Royals’ first run of the game off a fielder’s choice in the bottom of the fourth.
The turning point in the game would come in the next frame. The Royals had a chance to escape a jam in the fifth with no damage, but a ball landed just outside of the reach of Jack Samuelson and rolled to the wall paving the way for the Vets to extend their advantage to 5-1 with three two-out runs.
After holding the Royals scoreless in the bottom half of the inning, the Vets would continue to tack on runs, putting the game out of reach. A conference was called about the heavy rain before the start of the seventh, and the decision was made to end the game with the Vets leading 9-1.
The next game for Valley City will be July 1st against Kindred at 6:00 PM.