The season officially came to a close for the Valley City Post 60 Royals after dropping an elimination game to the Mandan A’s 5-1.

The fielding issues that plagued Valley City in the late stages against Kindred yesterday carried over into the early stages of this game, committing a pair of errors in the first inning. Those errors, mixed in with a dropped ball on a tag on a play at the plate, allowed three runs to come across and score as Mandan took an early 3-0 lead.

The Royals pulled a run back in the bottom half of the first, as Gavin Gerhardt’s chopper brought in Trevor Fetsch, making it a 3-1 game. Royals pitcher James Schwehr’s pair of walks in the second bought enough time for the A’s to scratch together a pair of runs after a two-out single by Jack Tooke.

Schwehr would escape the inning without allowing more damage, keeping the deficit at 5-1. The bats would then fall silent for both sides, as neither team could muster a hit until the fifth inning. However, Mandan pitcher Aidan Bogner would continue, navigating his way around any potential trouble, as Valley City could not muster any extra-base hits on the day.

Valley City would put a couple of men on for Corbyn Powell with two outs in the seventh, but a groundout to first officially sealed Mandan’s 5-1 win. James Schwehr would take the loss on the mound going all seven innings, allowing four earned runs and holding the A’s to only two hits in the final five innings.

The next Valley City game on KOVC will be on August 30th, when the Hi-Liners Football team travels to Lisbon to kick off the season against the Broncos. That game can be heard on 1490 AM/ 96.3 FM KOVC.