A 13-inning marathon had a bit of an anti-climactic ending for the Aberdeen Smittys Thursday night at Fossum Field.

Watertown Post 17 scored seven runs in the top of the 13th inning, eclipsing what had been to that point a classic baseball duel. Watertown ended the night with a 9-5 victory, while the Smittys claimed the opening game of the doubleheader by a 10-7 score.

“It’s not easy playing a normal doubleheader,” said Smittys coach Brandon Kusler. “I just told the guys that. It’s not easy putting seven (innings) and seven together, then you come out and put a seven and a 13 together. We really played good baseball throughout the majority of those 13 innings. Credit to our guys and their guys as well, just competing. Both teams wanted to win super bad, and it’s tough to not come out on top of something like that.”

After exploding for 10 runs in game one, Aberdeen settled into a pitcher’s duel in game two, and trailed 2-1 heading into the bottom of the fifth inning. Brendon Livermont singled home Andrew Woehl for the tying run, setting off a long exchange of missed opportunities, as both teams put go-ahead and winning runners in scoring position multiple times over the next seven innings.

But it was Watertown that capitalized first, scoring on a bases-loaded walk. An ensuing single, a dropped fly ball and another bases-loaded walk then put the game essentially out of reach despite a 4-spot from the Smittys in the bottom half of the inning.

Still, the Smittys felt like game one was at least a small measure of vengeance after Post 17 won handily in a doubleheader in Watertown.

“I like where our offense is at right now,” Kusler said. “(Watertown) did take it to us last week down in Watertown. That was the message to our guys. We owe them two games. … Just proud of the way our guys responded, losing those two last week and coming out and playing good enough baseball in game one and finding a way to get that win.”

Aberdeen ended up with 10 runs on 12 hits in that opening win, and had five runs on nine hits in game two, but stranded 10 runners on base in the nightcap.

“Just proud of the way they battled,” Kusler said of his squad. “That’s what we’re going to do all year is compete. Sometimes you’re going to compete and you’re going to outplay teams and you’re not going to come out on top. That’s just baseball. But we’ll stick to it. We’ll clean up a few things, a lot of errors in game one we need to clean up, but I do like where we’re at offensively and on the mound, too.”

Jaiden Smith got the win for Aberdeen in game one, going six innings, allowing seven hits and striking out two. He also had three hits and knocked in four runs.

Zane Backous and Phillip Zens did most of the heavy lifting in game two, throwing 100 pitches each and recording a combined seven hits and eight strikeouts.

Aberdeen will host Lake Norden at 1 p.m. Saturday for a single nine-inning game at Fossum Field.

Watertown 050 020 0 – 7 7 1

Aberdeen Smittys 202 150 x – 10 12 8

Mitch Olson, D. Rawdon (6) and C. Mutschler. Jayden Smith, Casey Vining (1) and Andrew Ristau-Richardson. 2B – Watertown, Drew Denzer, T. Jurgens; Aberdeen Smittys, Ethan Kjenstad.

Watertown 000 200 000 000 7 – 9 9 2

Aberdeen Smittys 100 010 000 000 4 – 5 9 3

Talan Jurgens, Jack Heesch (7), Jackson Maag (13) and C. Mutschler; Zane Backous, Phillip Zens (6), Casey Vining (13) and Andrew Woehl. 3B – Watertown, D. Denzer.