The two-time defending Doug Conn Tournament champions, the Howe Sound Cannons, have struck out.
The team travelled to Victoria for the May long weekend (May 22 to 24) to slug it out with the Nanaimo Coal Miners, the Victoria Mavericks and the Puget Sound Tigers for the cup but returned empty handed.
"It didn't go as good as we obviously hoped because we didn't win, but it was still good," said long time Cannon third baseman Troy Morphy. "We went down fighting."
Four games ended in four losses for the North Shore Men's Baseball team.
Morphy said two of the games were really close and could have gone either way.
"We didn't win a game but two games, we easily could have won."
On Saturday's game against the Nanaimo Coal Miners, the Cannons were down five-nil in the fifth inning until the team's bats came alive.
"We tied it up, we got five unanswered runs in the fifth or sixth inning," said Morphy.
But Nanaimo rallied, scoring two more runs for a 7-5 final.
The first game between the Howe Sound team and the Puget Sound Tigers resulted in a 3-0 loss for Squamish.
Puget Sound's southpaw pitcher didn't help the lefties on the Cannons team.
"It's like he's throwing right at you. Not that that's an excuse we just weren't hitting the ball," Morphy said.
A game against the Victoria Mavericks resulted in a crushing 13-2 defeat for the Cannons, who again had to deal with a left-handed lobber.
"I don't know what it was, we just weren't hitting the ball, or if we were, we were hitting it right at people."
Despite a tough fight in an extra inning game, a second loss to the Tigers put the Cannons out of their misery and knocked them out of the running for the championship.
Morphy said the Cannon pitchers, Jack Thompson and Jeremy Galley, did a good job but batters just couldn't bring it home when it counted.
Catch the next set of Cannon home games at Laroy Watt Stadium at noon and 3 p.m. on Saturday (May 29).
