The two hour rain delay prior to Saturday's International League playoff game between the Indianapolis Indians and the Charlotte Knights must have been an omen.
Once the game did begin, little went right for the Indians, as they spotted the Knights three first inning runs and came up short with a late rally, falling 6-4 at Knights Stadium in suburban Charlotte. Charlotte won the best-of-five series three games to one and advances to the IL Governor's Cup championship against Pawtuckett.
Indianapolis ran into a buzzsaw in Knights starting pitcher Matt Zaleski. The former Indiana State Sycamores (8.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 SO) star kept the Tribe at bay throughout the night, allowing just one run over eight innings of work.
Charlotte jumped on Indians starter Kris Johnson (1.0 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 0 SO) in their first at bat. Back-to-back one out walks to 2B Drew Garcia and 3B Brent Morel, set the stage for the red-hot 1B Seth Loman, who promptly ripped a run-scoring double to left to give the Knights a 1-0 lead. Terre Haute native and Indiana University alum Josh Phegley followed with a single to left to plate Morel and extend the lead to 2-0. Charlotte tacked on an additonal run with the help of an Indianapolis error.
The loss dampens what had been an ultra successful year for the Tribe. Indianapolis set a Victory Field era record with an International League best regular season record of 89-55. The Tribe were also at their best at home as they posted the second best record ever at Victory Field at 48-24.
For more on the Indians, visit http://www.examiner.com/article/charlotte-power-surge-short-circuits-ind...
We'll wrap up our coverage of the Tribe's season later this week with a "year in review" story.
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