Courtesy photo The USAMRIID Warriors, Fort Detrick 2010 softball champions.

F.O.G (22-0) in the regular season, had dominated every team including second place USAMRIID (16-6). The stage was set up for the two teams to face off in the championship, but things didn’t happen quite as expected.

USAMRIID came out motivated in the semifinals of the winner’s bracket to go on and beat the reigning champs, to advance to the championship in the winner’s bracket. USAMRIID had to hold off a late rally in the bottom of the seventh to hang on for the win.

‘‘I think we were up by about six runs or so, and I knew that they could score that many runs in a blink of an eye, because they did it to us all season. They scored more than ten runs in one inning on us at least 2-3 times during the year, so I was definitely still nervous going into that last inning,” said 3rd basemen Staff Sgt. Jessie Stephens.

F.O.G. had to play through the loser’s bracket to make it back to the championship series. They easily made it past 114th Signal Brigade to once again set a matchup with USAMRIID in the championship. F.O.G. had to beat USAMRIID two times to claim the championship, and USAMRIID could seal it with one win.

The teams finally squared off Aug. 23, after a two week break due to several players from both teams being absent. F.O.G. started off the game with a relentless hitting attack, and never let up, going on USAMRIID racking 10 runsin the 5th inning, with a final score of 21-6.

‘‘It was the regular season all over again. They had their bats going and we were absolutely defenseless. It’s really hard to beat a team like that, when you can’t match their run total. It really gets demoralizing out in the field when a team scores that many runs against you, and there is nothing you can do about it. It’s tough not to get down as a team, and to stay motivated,” said right fielder Sgt. Thom Plummer.

The second game was now do or die for both teams. It was an unusually low scoring, tight game. The game was tied 5-5 through the 3rd and it didn’t look like either team was going to break through. Both teams were focused on defense and neither team could put together a string of hits.

Finally in the sixth inning, both teams put together a nice inning and USAMRIID held the edge at 10-9. After some costly errors by F.O.G., USAMRIID was able to capitalize and put two more on the board going into the bottom of the seventh. F.O.G. led off the inning with a triple to right field, but three consecutive pop flies sealed the deal for USAMRIID to capture its first softball championship since 2001.

“It's all about who brings the bats and best attitude, that wins games. We are out here playing to have fun. If you can't score at least 10 runs it's going to be a tight game,” said F.O.G. catcher Dave Rolls.

With the championship, USAMRIID adds to their successful sports season. In the fall, USAMRIID captured the Flag football championship, and in the winter went on to win the volleyball championship. They hope to carry that over again to this year’s football season which starts Aug. 30.