Back to life; Back to reality.

Both benches were skinny, as is the unfortunate norm for league games played after the Senior Men's AAA Qualifier Tournament. Nonetheless, the two teams still had some stake in the final league standings. The Milton Red Sox were looking to end their two game losing slide and gain ground in the overall COBA Major standings, while the Burlington Brants were riding a 2-game league win streak and posing to distance themselves from their evening's opponent.

Officially, the Brants were the home club tonight after weather had scuttled the teams' previous affair, and wasted no time getting on the board first in the home half of the 1st inning. Some less than stellar Red Sox glove work led to Burlington jumping out to an early 2-0 lead.

Milton cut the lead in half in the 3rd on an RBI single from Chris Bloom, who plated swift outfielder Ethan Xavier from 2nd base after the latter walked with one out and swiped his first base of two for the game. The Red Sox would load the bases in the inning, but fail to score which proved costly in the final result.

Burlington broke the game open with a 5-run 4th when the twilight sky turned ugly for the Milton outfield, and extended the Brants' advantage to 7-1.

Seemingly, the Milton bats awoke in the 6th as the Red Sox again loaded the bases. With one out catcher Brendan Mahoney lined an RBI single to centre field scoring Liam Butchereit. Xavier would follow with an infield safe of his own, counting Matt Fusco and Bloom struck again; lifting a single into right field plating Daniel Leonard. With the bases still full of red jerseys, Christian D'Cruz lofted a long fly ball to the warning track to push Mahoney across to trim the Burlington lead to two. Chris Smorenburg capped the hit parade with an RBI single into left field, scoring Xavier and get the Red Sox back in the game at 7-6. That's where the fun stopped.

With the Red Sox unable to mount any signifciant traffic on the base paths for the remainder of the game, Burlington took full advanatge of their own opportunites putting up 3 late runs and win going away 10-6.

Nick Edwards made his COBA Major starting debut for Milton. The young lefty pitched 3 innings, giving up two hits, 5 runs (3 ER), striking out 2, and walking 7. Veteran hurler Nate Hamel finsihed the game for the Sox completing the final 5 frames.

Offensively, Milton tallied 10 hits on the night, with Bloom, Smorenburg, and Leoanrd each earning two hits apiece, while Bloom led the team with 2 RBI. The speedy Xavier scored twice, stole two bases and was a force from the 9-spot in the order.

With the loss, the Red Sox find themselves back at the .500 mark for the season at 11-11. They will travel to Brampton on Thursday (7:30 pm - Dave Dash Memorial Field) to face the Royals, and then cap the season's regular schedule with a trip to Waterloo (6:30 pm - Bechtel Park) on Sunday evening for a tilt with the Tigers.