West Allis NATIONALS Baseball

Most games are lost, not won. That lesson was demonstrated not once, but twice on Saturday night as the West Allis Nationals and Milwaukee Angels split the first two games of their best-of-three championship playoff series. The Nationals took game one 3-0, but fell in the nightcap 11-4. The opener was a pitchers duel. The only runs of the game came in the third inning due in part to Angels miscues. Brian Gibson led off the inning with a double down the right field line. After Jason Koconis was unsuccessful bunting him to third, Angels catcher, Ben Krey, did the job in allowing a ball to get by him to the screen. Koconis quickly capitalized with a line single to left field and the Nationals were up 1-0. Next up was Jake Koutnik. Koutnik's sacrifice bunt was fielded by Krey and thrown away down the right field line, scoring Koconis. A third Angel miscue in the inning-a ground ball under the glove of the shortstop-allowed Koutnik to score and put the Nationals in command at 3-0. That was more than enough for Joe Kissler. Kissler battled the Angels with 6 1/3 innings of shutout ball. Kissler lacked his usual velocity and command, but made big pitches to get out of several jams. Tim Ustruck got the final two outs to secure the victory. The tables turned in game two. The normally slick fielding Nationals were stung by a couple of tough hops in the first two innings and fell behind 3-0. Nick Kibler started the game on three days rest and was the unfortunate recipient. Kibler left after four innings and the team down 6-1. Jim Dettman mopped up, but the offense failed to get charged up until the seventh inning when the game was out of hand at 11-1. Tuesday night will decide the Milwaukee County Championship. Game time at Zirkel Field is 7PM.