Photos:

After finishing third of 27 12-and-under teams in the United States Fastpitch Association tournament held in Columbus over the weekend, local team Red Alert walked off the field disappointed with its placing. Red Alert has become used to playing for championships.

Ed Loweth Jr.’s 12-year old squad came into USFA play Friday the top seeded team on the bracket. It won the USFA Seven Game Jam, a round-robin style competition held two weeks ago in Columbus and Edinburgh, had a 37-12 record and was on a 10-game winning streak before losing to Indy Edge in the finals of the winners bracket.

“We beat a really good team earlier (in the day) and had to come straight over to play Edge,” Loweth said. “The girls came out slow for the first couple of innings and got behind, and that was it. When a team jumps on you and gets ahead two or three runs in the first couple of innings, then that is the ballgame.”

The game against Indy Edge was Red Alert’s second game on Sunday and its fourth in two days. After losing to the Edge 9-2, the team had a chance to redeem the loss if it beat Indy Xtreme, which Alert had beaten 3-1 in its first game of the day.

It wasn’t to be. Despite leading most of its second game against Xtreme, the advantage that Red Alert had disappeared in the sixth when Xtreme finally tied the game with a single run before heading into the final inning of play. At that point, the wheels came off, exhaustion had finally gotten the better of Loweth’s team and it gave up five runs to lose 8-3.

“We were having a pretty good game until the end when we fell apart,” pitcher Tessa Sims said. “We were kind of tired.”

Loweth called it before the game.

Think your friends should see this? Share it with them!