The Portage Phillies finished second to the Plum Coulee Farmers after a 6-2 loss in the championship finals in Winnipeg Fastball League action over the weekend.

The Phillies began their quest for a title at the Stonewall Quarry Park in their first game against Plum Coulee in Round Robin action but fell 9-1 against the eventual champs.

“I thought we did well and had a pretty good year. We finished tied for first,” said Gregg Waldvogel.

“The first game we didn’t hit the ball. We faced some very good pitching and they got up on us early so we just couldn’t get back into it. In the second game, we hit the ball hard but right at guys. It was one of those games where we could have been up as easily as we got down,” he added.

Portage looked to rebound in their second game but couldn’t find any hits against the Notre Dame Clubs as they lost 3-0.

“The tournament at first didn’t go as well as planned but it worked out for us because there was a new format for the Round Robin this year. We went 0-2 but won one game on Sunday to get into the playoff round.”

With their offence on the fritz, the Phillies tried to turn things around and get back to the fundamentals before facing off against the Stealers on Sunday in game three of Round Robin play.

Luckily the Phillies began to find their groove as they shutout the Stealers 4-0.

The win earned them a third place spot heading into elimination play, where they would rematch the Clubs in the semi-finals.

“We had a good day beating the Stealers and Notre Dame. We played well against Plum Coulee too and our goal was to get to the final game and we did,” said Waldvogel.

In what was a closely contested match-up, the Phillies were able to get a little payback with a 7-6 win over the Clubs, which set them up for a final round match-up with Plum Coulee.

In what turned out to be a tough game, the Phillies lost in the final despite a home-run from Tanner Waldvogel. Neil Finch was also tagged with the loss.

“Well Plum Coulee is a very good team and their pitcher pitches for Team Canada. For us to have beaten them, we couldn’t give up a lot of runs. We got our two and we had an inning where we tried to make some plays but it didn’t go our way. They capitalized on our mistakes and it was 2-1 heading into the fifth,” said Waldvogel. “We had some calls that didn’t go our way and if it did, it would’ve changed the game for us a little bit. But that’s how it goes in fastball. Plum Coulee has been a top team all season and we just came up a bit short.

“I was happy with the guys played and responded,” he added.

The Phillies also want to give a shoutout to all the sponsors who stepped up to help the team this year.

jordan.maxwell@sunmedia.ca