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Panthers, Billy Goats split Games 1 & 2 as the NLCS shifts to Panther Park.
GRANGER- For the first time in quite some time, the National League Championship Series kicked off without the power house New Carlisle Newts after the Panthers eliminated the 2 time defending National League Champions and 3 time ORWBL World Series Champions.
With the landscape of the league changing, younger teams have come into this league and experienced more success than in previous times. The 2018 NLCS features two teams located in Granger as the 2nd year Granger Panthers and Twin Branch Billy Goats playing in their inaugural season kicked things off at the Goat House.
The 3rd seeded Billy Goats came out firing on all cylinders in Game 1 as they managed to put up 14 runs en route to a Game 1 (14-10) victory to steal home field advantage away from the top seeded Panthers.
However, in Game 2, the Panthers bats came alive while the Goats bats quieted down a bit. Despite Manager Griffin Smith quoting Granger's performance as "poorly', the Panthers were able to bounce back to pick up a Game 2 win by the score of 15-7.
The series now shifts to Panther Park where one of these two teams will advance to their first ORWBL World Series. While these teams are friends off the field, both of these teams are competitors and that is part of the reason why a lot of the current Goats left the Panthers over the offseason to build their own franchise.
With both of these teams now just 2 wins away from advancing to the 2018 ORWBL World Series, things could get chippy as both of these teams are hungry to beat each other and even hungrier to win the National League Championship Series.
This series has all of the potential to go the full 5 games which would only amp up the intensity between both of these teams. The Panthers and Goats can taste a pennant, but only one of them will have the honor of raising a National League Championship Pennant. While the outcome of this series could go either way, one thing is for sure and that is that either the Panthers or Goats will be in celebration mode on August 5th when the series resumes at Panther Park.
