The Oilmen came to Dowling Park in what was a beautiful day for some baseball. In what is a 3 game series between the Oilmen and Vikings was a Oilmen 1-0 lead in the series heading into Monday's game. It was Elijah Rodriguez a guy who coach Hunt is familiar with from when Rodriguez was a pitcher for Whiting HS and Hunt told me prior to the game that Rodriguez had been one of his top guys the last two years. For the Oilmen, it would be Anthony Valenza getting the start.

Things got off to a hot start at Dowling when the Oilmen put 1 run on the board and then later in the next half inning the Vikings themselves put one on from a Jacob Gunn tripled and scored on a passed ball. That didn't stop there for the runs in this ball game as the Oilmen tacked on another in the 2nd making a 2-1 ballgame in their favor.  That wasn't till Andres Allred back from a little hiatus with the Vikings returned in great fashion knocking a homerun over the fence to even up the score at 2.

It wasn't until the 3rd when the Oilmen put on another run but it was the Vikings who controlled the inning, scoring 4 runs thanks to a passed ball and two singles from Owen Bendis and Chris Webb jumping the lead for the Vikings 6-3. Things for the Vikings started getting out of control when in the 4th and 5th combined for 9 runs by some big time hits by the Oilmen.

The game at its final was 12-6 Oilmen, even though the score board doesn't look great I will say the Vikings played great out there today. The pitching was a tad rough for both Rodriguez and Fausto but in an early season its best to get guys with not much experience against higher division players to boost their confidence and to continue giving them reps as the season goes by.

The Vikings look to grab a win in the final game of the series at Oil City Stadium tomorrow at 7:00 PM.