On Sunday, June 9, the Wagner American Legion Post 11 baseball team traveled to Scotland to take on the Scotland-Menno-Freeman 79ers in their first game of the year.

Wagner would strike first in the top of the 2nd as Ted Slaba laced a one out double to right center field. He advanced to third on a wild pitch and came home to score on a Christian Doom sacrifice fly to right field.

We would tack on another run in the 3rd as Tyler Tjeerdsma and Carlin Hopkins would each draw a walk and advance a base on a balk. Preston McFayden then hit shallow fly ball to left field allowing Tjeerdsma to tag up and score.

Scotland would get on the board in the bottom of the 3rd taking advantage of a walk, balk, and an error to get one run.

Carter Cournoyer started the game on the mound for Wagner and pitched 4.2 innings, allowing just the one unearned run on one hit while striking out seven and walking one. Ted Slaba came on the in the 5th and threw one pitch before a runner was thrown out by Joey Cournoyer trying to steal second.

Wagner led 2-1 entering the bottom of the 6th leading 2-1 when things went haywire defensively. It started off with a hit batsman. Then an error allowing runners to reach second and third. Followed by another error. Followed by another error. Followed by a sacrifice fly. And before we knew it, we were down by a score of 4-2, which ended up being the final score. Wagner did mount a rally in the top of the 7th, getting the first two runners on base, but a strike out, runner interference, and a fly ball ended the game.

It was an unfortunate loss as we played well with the exception of the one inning. All four of S-M-F’s runs were unearned. Ted Slaba would have two hits on the night while scoring a run. Carter Cournoyer, Hunter Loeffler, and Christian Doom each had a hit for Wagner with Doom and McFayden collected an RBI apiece.