Storm Chasers Fall to Sugar Land in Triple-A National Championship 13-6

LAS VEGAS, NEV. – The International League Champion Omaha Storm Chasers saw the 2024 season come to an end Saturday at Las Vegas Ballpark, with a 13-6 loss to the Pacific Coast League Champion Sugar Land Space Cowboys.

Sugar Land scored first in the winner-take-all game, as three walks loaded the bases to open the inning off Omaha starter Luinder Avila, then a sacrifice fly scored the first run of the game. Two singles and an error added two more runs in the bottom of the second, giving the Space Cowboys a 3-0 lead after two innings, knocking Avila out of the game in the process.

Omaha jumped ahead for the first time in the game in the top of the third inning, first getting on the board with a solo home run from Cam Devanney. Devanney’s homer was followed by singles from John Rave and Nate Eaton, then with two outs, Brian O’Keefe hit his first of two homers in the day, a go-ahead three run shot that put the Chasers on top 4-3.

The lead did not last long for Omaha, with Sugar Land plating five runs in the bottom of the third on two hits, three walks and an error off relievers Austin Cox and Eric Cerantola, a lead the Space Cowboys held the rest of the night.

Cerantola allowed a pair of solo homers in the fourth, and Noah Murdock surrendered three runs on three hits and a walk in the fifth, with the Space Cowboys putting up runs in each of the first five innings, totaling 13 in that span.

O’Keefe briefly brought home back in the game in the top of the fourth, as Drew Waters reached on an error, then O’Keefe rocked a two-run homer to left field.

While the O’Keefe homer brought Omaha within four, at 10-6, the Sugar Land 3-run bottom of the fifth moved the score to the 13-6 that held to be final.

Murdock, Dan Altavilla and Evan Sisk combined to retire the final 12 hitters of the game through the end of the eighth, with Altavilla throwing 1-2-3 innings in the sixth and seventh, with Sisk pitching a perfect eighth inning.

After O’Keefe’s homer in the fifth, Omaha was held to four walks, two singles and hit batter over the last four innings of the game, with the bases left loaded in the eighth.

Nick Pratto singled with two outs in the ninth, but Omaha could not do anything more offensively as Space Cowboys closer Wander Suero worked a scoreless ninth inning to secure the National Championship for Houston’s Triple-A affiliate.

The Omaha Storm Chasers will open the 2025 season against the Iowa Cubs Friday, March 28, 2025 at Principal Park in Des Moines, Iowa.