Struggles by relief pitchers and one costly error proved to be too much for the Junction City Brigade to overcome Monday night at Rathert Field as they fell to the Midwest Athletics 11-9.

The Brigade led the Midwest Athletics ( 14-3 ) by a score of 8-3 after five innings of  the ballgame and by an 8-4 count going to the seventh. But then a series of struggles on the mound that included appearances by four Junction City relief pitchers resulted in the Brigade coughing up 7 runs during the 8th and 9th innings combined. In the 8th inning the Athletics went through their entire batting order as they scored five runs in that frame alone.

Brigade head coach Seth Wheeler got a good pitching performance through five and one-third innings by Nate McBroom but then he noted the first relief pitcher, Joseph Flood struggled. “Flood wasn’t as sharp in the 7th and kind of labored his way through it. So I shouldn’t have sent him back out in the 8th and I did. He struggled again, got us in a rough situation from there and it kind of just went downhill from there. ” Marcus Washburn followed Flood on the mount, but also struggled in the 8th inning.

A play in center field by Tyler Bracht of Junction City also had an impact. He ran in on a fly ball, realized it was going over his head, turned to try and go back for it but slipped on the grass that had become wet from an earlier rain.

Junction City tried to rally in the 9th inning and scored one run to cut an 11-8 deficit to the final score of 11-9. The Brigade left two runners on base in the bottom of the ninth.

The Brigade, ( 11-7 ) play at the Midwest Athletics Tuesday night.