TEAMS earns 2021 Men's Class A Slow Pitch National Championship title

Recap from September 7th:

Champions: Thunder/Chosen

OKLAHOMA CITY –– Thunder/Chosen closed out Labor Day weekend at the USA Softball Hall of Fame Complex by earning the 2021 USA Softball Men’s Class A Slow Pitch National Championship title with a 41-33 victory over Kut4 Sports/Ol Livingston/D2E. Thunder posted an undefeated 5-0 record en route to the Championship hardware while scoring 30 or more runs in each of their contests with a combined total of 49 home runs on the weekend. Click here for a list of All-Americans from the 2021 USA Softball Men’s Class A Slow Pitch National Championship The first game of the day saw a loser's bracket matchup between Chanticlear Pizza/Monsta and Dirt Dogs/FHS with a trip to the loser's bracket finale on the line. A dramatic start to Championship Monday, the offensive duel saw 20 balls leave the park with both teams scoring at least one run every inning en route to a 37-36 walk-off win for Chanticlear. Dirt Dogs jumped on top early, taking a four-run lead in the top of first while holding Chanticlear to one. An explosive third inning from both offenses would bust the game open with Chanticlear taking a 26-17 lead after plating 18 runs while allowing 12 runs to score for the Dirt Dogs. The score continued to bounce back-and-forth through the remainder of the game, but a walk-off single from Quinn Cannoy would plate the winning run to advance Chanticlear to the final loser’s bracket contest against Kut4 Sports/Ol Livingston/D2E Trailers.   Dirt Dogs completed their run with a 5-2 record after dropping their first game of the tournament to Comatose/S2N/Monsta yesterday morning. Fighting their way through the loser’s bracket, the Dirt Dogs won five-straight games to advance to Championship Monday before falling to Chanticlear in the 37-36 contest.   Game two paired Chanticlear Pizza/Monsta and Kut4 Sports/Ol Livingston/D2E Trailers together, with the winner advancing to the Championship game against the undefeated Thunder/Chosen. The semi-final matchup came down to the final three outs with Kut4 Sports pulling out the 28-25 win with the help of a 10-run second inning and seven-run seventh inning. Trailing Chanticlear 25-21 in the top of the seventh, the Kut4 offense would string together three base hits and two home runs off the bats of Brandon Hooks and Andrew Calhoun to take the final lead of the game before issuing a 1-2-3 inning the bottom of the frame to send Chanticlear home with the third-place trophy.   The Championship contest saw a rematch between Thunder/Chosen and Kut4 Sports/Ol Livingston/D2E after going head-to-head in the winner’s bracket finale last night where Thunder took the 30-24 win. A similar outcome in the winner-take-all game, Thunder proved superior, this time with a 41-33 victory to earn the trophy. The two squads put on a show in the final matchup of the tournament, combining for a total of 74 runs and 20 long balls with Sean Geer (Kut4 Sports) sending three out of the park. ​ Thunder wasted no time in getting things started, plating seven runs on four homers in the top of the first. Quick to answer back, Kut4 Sports responded with seven runs of their own in the bottom of the inning to even the score, 7-7. The powerful offenses continued to shine for both teams through the second and third innings before Thunder took control in the top of the fourth, combining for 13 hits and three long balls to score 16 runs and put them on top, 34-21. Kut4 Sports cut the lead to six after responding with eight runs in the bottom of the inning, but Thunder tacked on four more in the top of the fifth to cushion their lead with two innings left to play. All the Kut4 Sports offense could muster through the remainder of the game was four runs in the bottom of the fifth after home runs from Josh Cardwell and Blake Green and base hits off the bats of Sean Greer, Kyle Mng, and Justin Tripp cut the Thunder lead, 38-33. Thunder offense wasn’t finished, though, adding three more to the board in the sixth and seventh innings while holding the Kut4 Sports offense scoreless through the final six outs to secure the 41-33 Championship win. ​ Thunder's Josh Fyffe and Gregg Downing sent two balls out of the park in the win while Justin Gregory, Joshua Riley, Brian Renner, Kyle Pearson, Amilson Marquez and Austyn Dawe hit one home run apiece. Runner Up: Kut4 Sports/Ol Livingston/D2E