After coming out of pool play with the Spamtown Challenge’s only undefeated record, the Austin Greyhounds bats suddenly went quiet as they fell in the semifinals Sunday morning 6-4 to Dundas.

“We struggled at the plate and helped their pitcher out a little bit,” said Matt Cano. “He kept us off-balanced. Our hats off to him.”

The Greyhounds line-up couldn’t find their swing against Jeremiah Leiviska, who went five innings to get the win for the Dukes. And when runners did reach, several were left stranded including a bases-loaded situation in the bottom of the seventh.

“We had a couple opportunities, but we couldn’t capitalize,” Cano said. “Sometimes, that’s how baseball goes.”

The loss comes a day after a marathon, 11-inning win over the Kewaskum, Wis. A’s, though Cano said that didn’t have anything to with Sunday’s loss.

“It’s a new day, new ballgame,” he said. “They’re a good team and any mistake is going to hurt.”

Dundas took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Dereck Salisbury scored on an error by shortstop Joe Kroc with the bases loaded.

They added two more in the top of the third and threatened to score more, but the Greyhounds were able to halt the runs when Kroc made a tough grab on a high grounder going away from him and flipped it to second baseman Nick Rohne who took the throw barehanded.

The Greyhounds finally got on the board when Kroc scored on a double from Nick Rohne.

The next inning the Dundas bats really got to starting pitcher Bryan Toov. Patrick Wadzinski scored on a single from Mike Ludwig.

The Dukes added two more off a double from Salisbury.

Holding a 6-1 win lead the Dukes had to fend off Austin’s first real challenge of the game. Leiviska, after starting the inning by striking out Dan Swift, preceded to walk Matt Raso, hit Dan Zielke and walk Nate Johnson.

Craig Braaten then singled in Raso and Kroc drew a bases-loaded walk to score Zielke. Two batters later Rohne drew the inning’s fourth walk from Leiviska to score Johnson.

Joe Huffman, coming on in relief of Toov, managed to stop the Dundas scoring for the rest of game.

Trailing 6-4 the Greyhounds once again loaded the bases with one out, but Zielke struck out and Johnson grounded out to end the game.

Despite the loss, the Greyhounds strung together some of the best baseball they’ve played to date and gives a sense of optimism for the rest of the season.

“I’m proud of the way everybody played this weekend,” Cano said.

Austin 7, Kewaskum, Wis. A’s 6

Tyler Leopold’s two-out single in the bottom of the 11th inning catapulted the Austin Greyhounds out of pool play in the Spamtown Challenge as the tournament’s only undefeated team Saturday evening.

The Greyhounds used a bottom of the 11th inning rally while both teams were playing under international rules of extra innings to defeat Kewaskum 7-6.

The two teams were locked at 4-4 going into extra innings when international rules were enacted that first put a runner at second going into the 10th inning and then putting runners at second and third for the 11th.

The runners represented the final outs of the inning before.

The A’s were poised to end the Greyhounds’ streak in the bottom half of the inning. With Austin’s final two outs of the 10th inning, Nick Bowe and Bryan Toov on second and third, A’s pitcher Jim Ziegler struck out Matt Cano.

Andy Swank drew a walk to load the bases, but Nick Rohne grounded out for the second out leaving the Hounds with their final out even though the ground-out scored Bowe from third to make it 6-5.

That’s when Leopold got his pitch.

“It was getting pretty intense,” Leopold said afterwards. “I knew he was coming with fastballs the entire time.”

Leopold drove Ziegler’s pitch to center scoring Toov and Swank to gain the win.

Austin held a 3-0 lead but lost that lead in the sixth when Kewaskum scored four to take the one-run lead.

In the bottom half of the same inning though the Greyhounds came back to tie the game when Dan Zielke doubled down the third base line, bringing Bowe around from first base who avoided tag inside on the throw to the plate to tie the game at four.

Zach Schara got the start for the Greyhounds and got himself out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning.

“There’s a level of adrenaline that goes into it,” Schara said. “I tend to get it a little bit up in the zone.”

Schara settled down after that and struck out six of the next seven batters he faced.

Alex Kayak, the third pitcher on the mound for Austin got the win.