It was all on the line Tuesday night, June 26, as the undefeated Royals faced off against the Diamondbacks at Empire Road Field to decide the City League Champion in the Willie Mays division of the Cortez American Amateur Baseball Congress.

The Royals had captured the championship last year with an undefeated record and went on to finish third in the state. However, the Diamondbacks were prepared to try and de-throne the Royals as defending champs this year.

The Royals got their offense going right away as Keenan Garcia smacked a lead-off double. Andrew Cukie drove him in with an RBI single and the Royals were on top. They took advantage of two walks with the bases loaded and stretched their lead to 3-0. When Garica got up for his second at-bat of the inning, he ripped another double and drove in two more runs. By the end of the first, it was 13-1 in favor of the Royals.

The hitting didn’t stop there for the Royals as they continued to cushion their lead in the second inning with an RBI triple from Garcia and a two-run double from Aaron Presnell. The Royals had a commanding 22-1 lead after batting around in the second inning.

In the top of the third, the hits just kept on coming for the Royals. Casey Lynn and Ty Hughes had back to back RBI doubles. Garcia, seemingly unstoppable at the plate, hit his third double of the night to give the Royals a comfortable 27-2 lead.

The Diamondbacks had plenty of pride though, and weren’t going down without a fight. They mounted a rally in the bottom of the third inning, highlighted by a an RBI single from Corey Duran to trim the lead to 27-3.

Normally, the game would have been called at the end of the third because of the 15-run three inning mercy rule but because it was the championship game, it continued to the fifth inning.

The Royals didn’t just get it done at the plate, they were solid defensively too. Cukie pitched three solid innings in which he only allowed three runs. Catcher Presnell had the play of the game in the fourth inning when he recovered from a wild pitch to gun down a Diamondback runner attempting to steal third base.