The Aberdeen Smittys were forced to play uphill baseball Monday at Fossum Field and never made it up the hill. Aberdeen led only briefly in falling to Brookings 15-8 and 13-2 in high school baseball action. "I don’t think we brought the energy to the field and walked too many guys," said Aberdeen's Karson Borge, "a lot of free bases, and our bats didn’t show up, either." Brookings scored five times in the opening inning of the first game to set the tone for the twinbill, which lasted nearly six hours. A big factor in both games was Aberdeen's difficulty in throwing strikes as the Smittys issued two dozen walks on the day. "I think the biggest hurdle that we have to overcome now is just pitching. We had close to 30 walks today. When you have numbers like that, it’s tough to win ball games," said Smittys coach Nathan Gonnelly. "Just getting our pitchers more dialed in, just getting them a little bit more experience, that’s what we saw today, seeing a lot of pitchers g