The Calgary Vipers won the first half of the season in the Northern League's North Division and clinched a automatic playoff berth with a 13-4 victory over the Schaumburg Flyers at Alexian Field in Schaumburg, Illinois. This is Calgary's first postseason berth in franchise history and it comes on manager Mike Busch's birthday and on the basis of the best overall record and road record in the league at 29-18 and 18-5. In September it will be the Snakes opening the playoffs at home with the first two games of a league semi-final five game series. Tonight in the clinching game the Vipers once again got great production from the top of the line-up in Darryl Brinkley with a run and four batted in, Jason Colson with two homeruns, three runs and four batted in, and Kyle Nichols with three hits, a run, and one batted in.

 

For the 29th time this season the Vipers scored the game's first run when Jason Colson hit a solo homerun to lead off the second inning. Next up Kyle Nichols doubled and Mitch Evans singled him home to make the score 2-0. After a Jorge Tang fielder's choice and a throwing error from shortstop David Hoffman, Evans was on third for a Manabu Kuramochi RBI base hit.

 

In the fifth inning Tang struck out but reached on a wild pitch. Kuramochi sacrificed him to second with a bunt and Darryl Brinkley drove him home was a single. Carlos Duncan was hit by a pitch and Colson picked up his first triple of the season scoring Brinkley and Castro and doubling the lead to 6-0. Nichols picked up his second hit of the night cashing in Colson for the seven run lead. Nichols tonight played his first game of the season in right field so that the injured Brinkley could be the designated hitter.

 

A run was added in the top of the sixth with Evans singling, moving to second on a Tang groundout, and then third when Kuramochi reached on another Hoffman error. With only one out Brinkley grounded into a fielder's choice to knock in Evans and make the score 8-0.

 

Schaumburg got on the scoreboard in a big way in the sixth when they loaded the bases thanks to singles by Alex Derhak and Mike Rohde and a walk to Christian Snavely. With one swing of the bat Pat O'Sullivan cut the lead in the half with a grand slam. Snakes' starter Chris Schutt, on only three days rest, left the gave after this inning giving Calgary a solid start going six innings with three strikeouts for his team leading sixth victory.

 

However Calgary got those four runs right back in the top of the seventh. With two outs Nichols, Nelson Castro, and Evans all walked for Tang who also walked for a RBI. Kuramochi reached on a Demetrius Heath error to score Castro and Brinkley capped off the inning with a single, for his third and fourth runs batted in on the game, to score Evans and Tang. With the three runs batted in on the evening Brinkley has 51 to lead the league.

 

In the top of the eighth Colson closed the scoring like he opened it with his second homerun and fourth run batted in to finish off a stellar night. The blast was Colson's tenth of the season and he now has 44 runs batted in. 

 

Evan Greusel came into the game in the seventh and earned his first save of the season by not allowing a run to score and striking out two in the final three innings.