Royals End Home
Stand 4-3
By Nathan McShinsky

The Royals baseball team hosted their sixth straight game at Alumni Field on May 3 against Stowe making up one of the five games that had to be postponed from earlier on in the season when the snow was still on the ground. 

The Royals came away with the win after a rocky start where Stowe put up three quick runs in the first. The Royals bounced back to score one in the second to make it 3-1 after two. Stowe scored two more runs in the top of the third but the Royals matched that in the bottom of the third to make it 5-3 Stowe after three.

Stowe however never scored again while South Royalton added three in the fourth and one in the fifth to make it 7-5 and then added two insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth to bring the final tally to 9-5, SoRo. 

On the defensive side of things Dustin Parker was on the hill throwing a complete game where he faced 31 batters throwing 103 pitches and striking out seven. Parker walked two, gave up six hits, and five runs, only two of which were earned. The Royals’ defense had four errors giving Stowe three unearned runs. 

The Royals were led by lead off man Nate McShinsky who was 3-3 with a walk, and a run along with Tyrell Manning who was 3-4 with two RBIs and three stolen bases. Parker also helped himself with three RBI's and Kris Ferris had an RBI double in the sixth.

Loss vs. Rutland 

On Saturday, May 5, the Royals held another makeup game at home vs. Division I Rutland where they had a chance to pick up some valuable index points. It was the final game of the Royals’ seven game home stretch before they go on the road for five games. 

The game however did not go as the Royals had planned. The game started with SoRo’s catcher, Dustin Parker getting taken out in a play at the plate in the first inning where one of the Rutland players failed to slide and instead ran straight into Parker sending him into the ground and the Rutland player was tossed from the contest. 

After this the Royals had to adjust their whole field to accompany the change and that knocked the wind out of their sails. Errors, errors, and more errors from everyone on the field led to a very lopsided victory for Rutland, 13-3. The Royals ended up with eight errors, as Rutland opened the game up in the second with four runs and the fourth with six runs.

On the mound the Royals split the pitching duties between Tyler Manning who threw four innings and McShinsky threw the final three innings. 

On the offensive side the Royals were led by McShinsky who was 2-4 with a double and an RBI, while Darren Slack had an RBI, and 1-1 with a run.

The Royals (4-3) looked to bounce back Tuesday night at Thetford and they go to Rivendell today, Thursday the 11^th.

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