Englewood, CO - The Cubs, positioned as the #3 seed, faced off against the #6 seed Mile High Green Elephants at Brent Mayne park for a quarterfinal matchup in a chilly drizzle early Sunday morning.  While it was expected to be a bit on the cold side, the drizzle made things a bit tough on everyone, but the excitement the Cubs had was on another level.  Armed with two heaters in the dugout, there was a third heater on the mound, with Pitcher Will Bartos throwing darts.  What has become typical of his pitching performances this year, Bartos stepped up in the second biggest game of the year so far (weeknight championship being the first) and delivered an absolute dominating performance.  At the end of it, Bartos tallied 15 k's on 6 hits and 3 runs.  "I felt great today given the cold weather and all, it just reminded me of college back in Illinois, so I was ready", said Bartos after the game.  

Offensively, the Cubs put up their highest run total of the year, plating 18 runs in 6 innings, which was enough for a mercy to secure the win 18-3.  Leading the offense was 3B Bryer Mueller with 6 rbi, including a grand slam in the bottom of the third that saw 11 Cubs come to the plate.  "It felt good to get that piece of wood on the ball and gave us some comfort room for sure", said Mueller when reached for comment while he was gaming at home.  

Shoutout to the Green who again streamed and broadcasted the game online for the 750 fans who didn't make it to the game given the weather conditions.  

With the 18-3 win, the Cubs advanced to the semifinals against the Kokopelli's, who the Cubs split with in the regular season, winning 3-1 in the first matchup and losing 9-8 in the bottom of the 9th last month.  It was going to be a battle with these rivals, and it was just that for the first 8 innings.  After no runs across, the Koko's finally punched one across in the bottom of the 3rd after a triple from SS Schmitt who plated Jon Reid who reached on a walk.  The Cubs, which didn't manage much more than a baserunner broke through in the top of the fifth after a leadoff double from RF Nick Besman who, on a very heads up play, scored on a pop-up to short right that the second baseman fell asleep and through back to second allowing Besman to score from third (shades of Billy Hamilton come to mind).  "I saw him nonchalantly toss the ball to second as I tagged up and then just went for it", said Besman, which credited Bryer Mueller with the rbi.  The Cubs scored again to take the lead 2-1 in the top of the 7th after LF Cole Golightly reached on an error, then moved from first to third on a pickoff error, then scoring on a double from 2B Andrew Clark.  The Cubs tacked on another 2 runs in the top of the 8th and then 4 more runs in the top of the 9th.  "Our guys battled at the plate, looked for pitches to drive and finally executed.  We started slow and were hitting the ball, but everything was right at someone, sooner or later we knew things would drop our way and they did", said hitting coach Todd Nester.  

Offensively, the Cubs tallied 12 hits with Clark leading with 3.  

"Playoff baseball and winning teams win with clutch pitching, and nothing was more evident than that from JD today.  He was on", said Bartos.  Heredia, much like this season and the last few years was dominating, allowing 5 hits, 3 walks, 1 run and 11 strikeouts in 8 innings.  "I love playoff baseball and playing with these guys.  All week, we were pumped up ready to go and when the weather started to clear and the sun came out, it just made me more pumped.  Getting those last two k's in the bottom of the 8th with runners on second and third was intense, and thats why we play this game", said Heredia afterwards while cleaning his vans.  

For the day, the Cubs outscored their opponents 26-4, collected 26 hits.  Pitching totals was 4 earned runs, allowed 10 hits and struck out 27 batters.

The Cubs advance to the 18AAA Championship game next weekend against the Redhawks who surprised the #1 seed Nightrain with a victory.  Time/Location TBD.