WQIO Ohio's Super Station
A wiffleball team made of mostly Knox County residents went to London Ohio to compete for the tournament this year.
In game one of four round robin games the Sidewinders took on the Ohio Storm with players from Lucas, Shelby and Mansfield and the Sidewinders won 12-6
In game two the Sidewinders navigated a tough field and defeated the Red Wings 9-1 to improve to 2-0. In game three a back and forth contest and pop out with the bases loaded to end the game sent the Sidewinders to a victory over the Creamers. Game four saw a rematch with Vice City in which the Sidewinders lost 30-22. This year the game was scoreless going to the fourth inning when Vice City put up a 4 spot. Tyler Mathias homered to make it 4-1 in an eventual 5-1 loss. In bracket play the Sidewinders got the 15 seed out of 60 teams.
They beat Wasted talent 10-2 as Kenny Rucker and Ryan Burke homered and Bo Boucher played a brilliant shortstop on a quick field to send the team to victory. Burke stayed hot In the round of 32 as the Sidewinders played the Mudcats and everyone homered including pitcher Nick Neighbarger in the team’s win. The victory set up a rematch of the 2017 Elite Eight which the Sidewinders lost to the Bulldogs who went on to win a championship that year. The game was close with the Guardians leading the top seed Bulldogs going to the second. Mathias hit three homers but it was a Neighbarger homer that tied the game at 8 heading to the bottom of the 5th. The Bulldogs hit a walk off home run in the bottom of the frame to beat the Sidewinders 9-8.
Sidewinders finished 5-2 with their losses by a total of 5 runs to two teams who either won or played in a title game the last two years.
