Whiting, Ind. – June 29, 2023 – The Southland Vikings held the Northwest Indiana Oilmen scoreless for eight innings on Thursday, but it was not enough in the end as the Oilmen came away with a 2-1 win in walk-off fashion at Oil City Stadium.

The focus was on the pitching for both teams as both starters walked away with no decisions after scoreless outings.

For the Vikings, Jack Otis shined in his debut with the team tossing five shutout innings while allowing just one hit, one walk and one hit by pitch.

On the other side, Joey Turek baffled the Vikings through seven shutout innings of his own while striking out eight and allowing six hits with no walks.

Once the game was turned over to the bullpens the Vikings were finally able to come away with a run, but they left more to be desired.

Antonio Saldana came on in relief of Turek for the Oilmen and immediately loaded the bases with two walks and a hit by pitch before exiting the game without recording an out in the eighth inning.

That set the Vikings up for a potential big inning with the bases loaded and nobody out, but they were only able to score one run on a wild pitch from the next Oilmen pitcher Aaron Buckholtz.

Buckholtz induced a flyout to shallow center from Shemar Harris for the first out of the inning, but it was not deep enough to drive in a run. The wild pitch from Buckholtz occurred during Bryce Nevils’ at bat, who then walked to reload the bases with one away. However, a strikeout of Caleb Rhodes and a groundout to second from Connor Janik ended the threat with the Vikings holding just a 1-0 lead.

Jorgie Vazquez was the second pitcher on the mound for the Vikings after he took over for Otis to begin the sixth inning. He tossed three scoreless innings to start his night, but the Oilmen finally broke through in a huge way in the bottom of the ninth inning.

With the Vikings still clinging to a one run lead, the Oilmen had back-to-back hits to start the inning on a Brendan O’Conner single, followed by a double by Brendan Stressler to put runners at second and third with nobody out. Vazquez then got ahead of Ethan Rossi 1-2 before a pitch got away and hit Rossi to load the bases. The Vikings elected to play for the win and keep the infield in all the way around, but it would not make a difference as Nick Daugherty sent Oilmen fans home happy with a two-run single to win the game.

“The pitching was great. You just can’t shut a good team out most nights,” manager Sullivan Stickann said after the game. “Adjustments just weren’t made [at the plate] and that’s why we had so many zeros on the board.”

The Vikings (13-13) next play back-to-back games on the road against the Miracle (11-15) starting on Saturday at 6pm ct.