[5 P.M. SUNDAY UPDATE]
The Clarinda A's scored a tiebreaking unearned run without a hit in the bottom of the eighth inning Sunday afternoon and then sweated out a ninth-inning Chillicothe Mudcats threat sustained by the A's own miscue to edge the Mudcats 3-2 in the winners' bracket final of the National Baseball Congress Central USA Regional tournament.
While the host A's, many times participants in the NBC World Series, moved within one victory of the 2008 Series berth which awaits the regional tourney champion, Chillicothe will have to do it the hard way if it wants to go to the Series in Wichita, Kan.
The Mudcats (30-16) are slated to face the survivor of the currently-underway losers' bracket semifinal contest between the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Grays and Diamond Spirit, a team from an Omaha, Neb., baseball academy's league, later this evening.
The scheduled time for Chillicothe's losers' bracket final originally was 7 p.m., but it likely will start later than that because of the approximately half-hour rain delay which interrupted the Mudcats-A's tilt in the seventh inning.

Clarinda won Sunday afternoon's game in most-frustrating fashion for the Mudcats and their fans.
After Chillicothe had overcome a pair of one-run deficits earlier in the game on Cody Fick's solo home run and Dominic D'Anna's RBI single, the A's capitalized on a pair of gifts proffered by the Fish in the bottom of the eighth inning.
First, Stewart Davis reached base safely while striking out, chasing a low delivery from reliever Aaron Kleekamp (1-1) and ricocheted off catcher Dallas Hord's shinguard and rolled into the A's dugout.
A fly ball then provided the second out of the inning, but Kleekamp – entering with a 0.58 earned run average in 32 innings of regular-season work – walked Josh Krummel and then wild-pitched the runners to second and third.
Making a good pitch to Ryan Peterson, Kleekamp got the A's shortstop to hit a weak, soft liner toward shortstop TS Reed, who'd gotten the starting call there in place of .150-hitting Kyle Zimmerman while Fick took over Reed's usual spot at second. Not hit hard enough to carry to the infielder, the ball had to be scooped up on a bounce and hurriedly thrown toward first. While a strong, on-target throw seemingly would have gotten Peterson to end the inning, Reed's rushed peg was low and first baseman D'Anna couldn't pick it cleanly as Davis crossed the plate with the go-ahead run.

The Mudcats got a reprieve in their ninth when D'Anna's routine grounder to second with two outs was thrown wide enough to pull the Clarinda first baseman off the bag as Matty Johnson, who had singled with one out, advanced to third.
A's reliever and winner Dustin Lloyd then walked Tyler Knight to load the sacks for lefthanded-hitting Tyler Bullock, who has been averaging more than an RBI per game.
With the potential tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position, the count went full before, after fouling off the first 3-2 pitch, Bullock flied out to left to end it.

When the Mudcats play later this evening – assuming there's no recurrence of rain, which is anything but certain, they will have to win to get another crack at Clarinda in the championship round. There, they'd have to beat the A's twice in a row to win the tourney crown and get the Series bid.
Starting pitcher for the Mudcats' Sunday evening game are lefthander Aaron Meade (4-1) or righthander Calvin Drinnen (3-1).
The Mudcats defeated Diamond Spirit 4-2 in the tournament last night. FCA, which lost to Diamond Spirit Friday, split its six-game season series with the Mudcats.
Whichever of Meade and Drinnen doesn't start would project, along with Nolan "Bubba" Martz (3-1) into a top candidate for Monday's championship round, if the Mudcats make it that far.

[SUNDAY MORNING'S UPDATE OF SATURDAY'S GAME]

Riding the arm of pitcher Andrew Dunn and bat, arm, and legs of catcher Dallas Hord, the Chillicothe Mudcats successfully took the first step toward reaching the goal of qualifying for the National Baseball Congress World Series Saturday.
At times overpowering on his way to 14 strikeouts, Dunn blanked the Diamond Spirit, an Omaha, Neb.,-based team, for the first eight innings before settling for a complete-game 4-2 victory in the winners' semifinals of the NBC Central USA Regional tournament.
Hord went three for four at the plate, scoring two runs and driving in one, and picked a runner off second base to end the top of the fourth inning when the Omahans had the potential tying runs aboard in a 2-0 contest.
With Saturday night's victory, the Mudcats advanced to Sunday's 1 p.m. winners' final in the double-elimination tournament. In that game, they'll meet the host Clarinda A's, who they defeated four times in six meetings in MINK League competition this summer.
The expected starting pitcher for the Mudcats against Clarinda is Blake Barber (6-1).
If Chillicothe wins Sunday's 1 p.m. game – the forecast at Clarinda Sunday is much like Chillicothe's, a 50-percent-plus chance of thunderstorms, increasing to 70 or 80 percent in the evening, it will advance unbeaten to the championship round scheduled for Monday evening. In that scenario, the Mudcats would have to win only once in two tries to claim the title and World Series tournament berth.
If Chillicothe loses Sunday's 1 p.m. game, it would move to the losers' bracket final, scheduled for 7 p.m. Sunday. In between those two games, if the weather allows, would be the losers' semifinal between Diamond Spirit and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Grays, which would produce the Mudcats' opponent.