It took about 15 minutes after their crazy game Tuesday night, but Jefferson Coach Kyle Rodenkirk finally got his guys to laugh after they lost to Kennedy 20-10 in the finals of the Bob Vrbicek Metro Baseball Tournament at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

The J-Hawks led 10-6 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, needing just six outs for the title, but the stubborn Cougars poured across 14 runs in the bottom of the sixth to win the game by the mercy rule.

Kennedy celebrated and felt great. The J-Hawks walked slowly onto the right field after shaking hands with the Cougars and felt absolutely miserable, a golden opportunity squandered.

Finally, Rodenkirk said something that broke the tension and made them chuckle.

"I said, 'It's almost like golf," he related. "Baseball is such a weird sport. I said, 'If I had my clubs, I'd be chucking them.' It's just one of those things. It's baseball."

Jefferson smacked Linn-Mar, 11-0, in five innings in the semifinals Tuesday, then raced to an 8-1 lead in the fifth inning against Kennedy with more lusty hitting and good pitching. Then the roof started to collapse, and the J-Hawks were not able to make repairs in time.

Incredibly, the Cougars batted around twice in the sixth inning and sent 18 batters to the plate. Ben Sass delivered a two-run single that snapped a 10-10 tie and gave Kennedy a 12-10 lead, but they did not stop there.

Zach Daniels, Miles Moa and Sass all had two hits in the sixth inning as the Cougars kept sending guys across the plate.

"That was fun," said Sass. "We practice that. We practice our mental conditioning. We just have to black out the last play and move on to the next pitch."

Tyler Dralle got the victory in relief after Jefferson gave Kennedy starter Sammy Lizarraga a hard time with a two-run homer by Marcus Colbert, a solo shot by Jared Eivins and some sweet swinging by Spencer VanScoyoc.

Kennedy scored five times in the bottom of the fifth to pull within 8-6, but Jefferson scored twice in the top of the sixth for breathing room at 10-6. Kennedy Coach Bret Hoyer was curious to see how his club would respond at that point.

"I thought, 'Let's see what we're made of,'" he remarked. "We responded, we answered. And then some."

The Cougars began scoring in the bottom of the sixth inning and never stopped. Jefferson had to dig deep into its bullpen and compounded its problems by throwing the ball around the yard for errors.

"I don't think I've ever seen a 14-spot on the board," said Dralle.

"I didn't know what was going on," said Rodenkirk. "I was kind of praying for an out there, but it didn't happen."

Jimmy Cunningham, the 18th man to bat in the bottom of the sixth, made it 20-10 with an RBI single to end the shenanigans by the 10-run rule.

Nobody at the ballpark could remember a game like this, except perhaps in T-Ball. Kennedy assistant coach Bill Herkelman recalled a game in the Metro Tournament years ago when Kennedy beat Washington, 13-12, in a game that ended at 1 a.m. in Marion, but that was nothing like this.

Hoyer has coached about 1,000 games in his career and could not think of anything comparable.

"No. Nothing," he said. "I think the first two times in my career when we scored eight runs in an inning we got beat. But nothing like this, no."

Jefferson had a good tournament until the very end, with victories over Marion and Linn-Mar. Then things went haywire.

"Tip your hat to those guys," he said, saluting the Cougars. "Their bats woke up. Like I told the boys out there, it's the second day of the season. I don't expect them to be Major League ballplayers. I expect them to make routine plays."

Linn-Mar will play Xavier at Ken Charipar Field Wednesday at 6 p.m. in a consolation game for third place.