Orleans finished 4-4 in round robin at Midget Nationals, another walk off homer for Graham

from Jeff Langford

The Orleans Rebels came up short in two close games at the Midget Nationals in Thursday. Orleans lost to the Scarborough Royals by a score of 6-4 in the morning game. Scarborough came to the tournament as the number one ranked team and have lived up to the billing going 6-1 in the first 7 games.

Nick Bowman pitched for the Rebels and took the loss but held the Royals to 6 hits over 6 innings. Andy Skelton of the Royals had a 3 run home run in the third to lead their attack. For the Rebels, Matt Bowman continued to have the hot bat going 3-4 with a home run and a triple.

In the afternoon game the Rebels lost 7-5 to the Napanee Express. Orleans tied the game up in the 7th on a Matt Alkerton solo shot, but Joran Graham from the Micksburg Twins hit his second walkoff home run of the Nationals in the bottom half. On the day Joran went 3-4 with 5 RBIs to carry Napanee to victory. Chad Hargrove took the loss for Orleans. Andy McLean, from Waterloo, picked up the win for the Express.

Orleans finishes the round-robin portion of the tournament with a 4-4 record. They will advance into the playoff round on the weekend but their placement is still not finalized. Napanee finished 3-5 and will have to play a tie breaker game to get into the playoff round.