Murray came back to earth Thursday night in the Babe Ruth World Series and met reality in the form of Harris, Ind. After winning two games in pool play and qualifying for the quarterfinal round, Murray did what host teams are supposed to do as it lost by a score of 21-2.

With the mercy rule not in effect for the quarterfinals, Harris showed none in scoring seven runs in the first inning and eight in the second to jump out to a 15-1 lead. Murray's third pitcher entered the game before the third inning.

Every time Harris came up, the base paths looked like a Merry-Go-Round. And the Murray players looked like they were playing pin ball.

By the third and fourth inning, Harris must have tired scoring only four and two runs respectively.

Murray's Spencer Downs led off with a triple to the gap in left center to begin the sixth inning. The crowd woke up and cheered and Alex Hill pulled a drive just inside the third base bag to score Downs but it was far too little and too late.

Murray's manager, Dewey Kettering, was pretty upbeat after the game considering what happened.

"It has been a wonderful run," he said. "We played as hard as we could."

He didn't use his two ace pitchers saying he didn't want to injure their arms. He said he might have used them if the game was closer just to face a couple of batters.

Alex Hill and Zach Paige each drove in a run for Murray. Harris's Conner Kuiper stroked five hits to set a new Babe Ruth World Series record, previously 22 players were tied with four hits in a game.

e-mail: wjewkes@desnews.com