Knights Fall To 8-10 After Late Inning Melt Down.

CARSON, CA - Knights waste great outing by Rod Boaz. Boaz struck out 12 hitters for the second straight game over. But the Knights were unable to hold onto a 7-2 lead as a number of dinks and hand grenades kept landing just out of reach of Knights fielders. Boaz frustration showed on the field but when I asked him about these unfortunate events after the game he was frank. "That's baseball." Boaz replied "I could stand on the mound and cry about it, or just make a better pitch next time so they can't make any contact with it." Boaz did plenty of that in his gutsy 120 pitch performance striking out the side in the 5th and 6th innings.

The Knights were in an early hole after a 2 run double by Kirk Mayer in the first inning, a fly ball that Boaz felt should have been caught, but right fielder Ryan Saul lost it in the sun. The Knights "stormed" back scoring 7 unanswered runs, 3 on a bases clearing double by Jonathan Williams and another 2 on a Pete Halvorsen single. Brendan McDonald hit a 430 foot triple to the 510 foot center field fence.

But the Knights were unable to hold onto the 5 run lead. In the bottom of the 7th the Storm dropped some Global Warming on the Knights in the form a 5 run 2 out rally. The Knights playing with only 9 players had no one to warm up the defacto closer Jonathan Williams due to the absence of Steve Fike, Kevin Murkey and/or Tony Sulser. Williams entered the game in the 8th inning and got out of a bases loaded jam. But couldn't get the last out of the 9th inning when the Storm's Matt Kennedy hit the walk off hit scoring the runner from 2nd and ending the game. Tossing a bit more fuel on the burning ship that is the Knights season.

The Knights take on the First Place Evil Empire this weekend. While they have won 2 of the 3 meetings between the two teams, those were different Knights teams that the Yankees saw.