Despite hammering out 15 hits in the semifinal game of the District 10 consolation bracket, the Oakville American Legion baseball team dropped a season-ending 9-4 decision to Eureka.

The loss for Oakville (25-21, 5-7 District 10) marked a game with a plethora of hits, but very few runs scored. That in itself was frustrating for head coach Matt Boyer.

“Basically that was the story of our season,” Boyer said. “We got a good pitching performance, but just didn’t get the key hits and had a couple of mistakes defensively.”

Oakville starting pitcher Tim Kappel went 51/3 innings, giving up nine runs on 11 hits. Kappel also walked one and struck out two in his second loss of the season. He finished the 2005 campaign with a 3-2 record that included a 3.20 earned run average.

“Tim was coming off a 2½- to three-week break due to an injury,” Boyer explained. “He did a pretty good job on the mound, we just couldn’t get that key hit when we needed them. Overall he gave us a great effort.”

Kappel was relieved in the sixth inning by J.R. Fogel-bach, who finished the game with a 22/3-inning performance. Fogelbach has been the iron horse of the Oakville bullpen this season with 16 appearances and a record of 4-0 overall with a 4.54 earned run average.

Oakville catcher Greg Dambach drove in two of the team’s four runs in a 3-3 performance that also included one sacrifice. Dambach finished the season with a .397 batting average that also included 30 runs batted in, two home runs and a team-leading five triples.

“Greg was seeing the ball really well that night,” Boyer said. “To catch a game in that heat and have a good game offensively, that really put the icing on the cake for him.”

Despite a slow start, Boyer noted his team ended up winning nine of its last 14 games.