A three-run blast in the seventh inning turned Game 1 on its head. Hours later, the Arsenal finished the job and ended a three-year championship drought.

For six innings on August 9 at South County High School, the Arlington Arsenal were staring at a familiar ending. A fourth straight championship-series defeat was starting to feel less like a possibility than a destination.

The Potomac Athletics scored four times in the top of the first of Game 1, and the Arsenal, the top seed in the DCMSBL 18+ National Division, spent the rest of the game clawing back. One run in the fourth. Two more in the fifth. Suddenly it was 4-3.

Then came the seventh. EJ Strittmatter opened the inning with a single. Christian Kim followed with a walk. Ryan Monson stepped in with two runners aboard and quickly found himself in a hole with an 0-2 count.

The next pitch changed the anticipated story as it disappeared over the right-field fence for a walk-off home run.

Monson’s three-run blast turned a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 win and adjusted the temperature of the championship series. The Arsenal did not let it cool. Later that night they collected 19 hits and overwhelmed the Athletics 11-2, completing the sweep and claiming their fifth DCMSBL championship, the first since 2022.

The Game 1 comeback had plenty of fingerprints beyond Monson’s. Joey Piotrowski entered after the first inning and threw five scoreless innings in relief, allowing eight hits and striking out six. Devin Roberts closed it out with a hitless seventh and earned the win on Monson’s swing. Kim and Tom Buckman had two hits apiece, the Arsenal stole four bases, and the defense played error-free baseball.

In the nightcap, the offense picked up where it left off. Drew Rybinski homered in the top of the first, and the Arsenal put up five more runs in the third on a Rybinski RBI single, a two-run home run by Sam Lyttle, and run-scoring singles from Andy McEnroe and Strittmatter. Monson, hours after delivering the decisive swing in Game 1, pitched six innings allowing six hits and notching six strikeouts. Andrew Suppa handled the championship-clinching inning, striking out three and walking one. Lyttle and Buckman each collected three hits; Lyttle and Rybinski drove in three runs apiece.

The sweep was the punctuation mark on a season that had been dominant from opening day through the dog days of summer. The Arsenal finished 16-1, outscoring opponents 198-66, an average of 11.6 runs per game. The lone blemish came on April 26, when they surrendered an eight-run lead and fell to the defending champion K-Flames, 18-12.

As a team, the Arsenal hit .434 and posted a .516 on-base percentage, piling up 258 hits, 37 doubles, 13 home runs and 51 stolen bases. Suppa led the club with 25 RBI, including 10 with two outs, and hit .440 with six doubles. McEnroe hit .511 with a team-high 23 hits and 20 RBI. Ryan Grigonis hit .500 with 20 hits and 17 RBI,

including a two-homer, five-RBI afternoon against the Athletics on May 31. Roberts hit .404 with three home runs and 19 RBI. Monson scored a team-high 20 runs, while Lyttle drove in 14 and hit three home runs.

The pitching staff was just as imposing. Arsenal pitchers struck out 199 batters in 122 innings and allowed 3.9 runs per game. Opponents hit .235. and the Arsenal did not allow a single home run all season.

Monson was the pitching staff’s workhorse, throwing 43 1/3 innings and going 4-0 with three saves. He struck out 59 and walked seven. Southpaw Eric Thomas went 5-0 with 47 strikeouts in 25 innings while holding hitters to a .185 average. Garrett VanDeventer struck out 21 in nine innings, including 13 in a six-inning shutout of the Cabin John Cardinals on May 3. Suppa added five saves out of the bullpen. Behind the plate, Piotrowski caught 95 innings, handled 155 chances at a .987 clip and threw out five attempted base stealers.

The path to the title was not without competition. The 2026 DCMSBL 18+ National Division featured one of its strongest collections of teams in recent years. The Athletics finished the regular season 11-2, while the K-Flames and Owls claimed the final two playoff spots with records of 10-3 and 9-4, respectively. In the semifinal contest, Thomas struck out 13 in five innings as the Arsenal beat the Owls, 11-4. During the regular season, the Arlington Arsenal swept the 2024 league champion Middleburg Red Sox in a July 26 doubleheader and beat the 2025 champion K-Flames, 15-2, on July 19.

The 2026 trophy was the fifth in the Arsenal’s nineteen (19) DCMSBL seasons, but the story of the club began long before this roster took shape. Dan and Ryan Hogan founded the team in 2008 as a collection of old Fort Hunt Little League and Bishop Ireton High School teammates. The early years were rough enough that their father suggested they give up baseball and try softball.

As the story goes, they stayed with baseball. After championship-game losses in 2013 and 2015, the Arsenal broke through in 2018, beating the Silver Spring Dodgers. Since then, they have appeared in every DCMSBL 18+ championship series, winning titles in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 and losing a one-game championship in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. Then came three straight championship-series losses: to the Loudoun Rifles in 2023, the Middleburg Red Sox in 2024 and the K-Flames in 2025. Which is what made these two games against the Athletics more than another series.

Strittmatter and Brett Hanlon are the last two original Arsenal members still with the team. Strittmatter, the franchise’s career hits leader with 342, and Hanlon have each played 19 DCMSBL seasons. Monson, in his sixth season with the Arlington Arsenal, holds franchise records for innings pitched (238) and strikeouts (303). McEnroe, Roberts, Grigonis, Lyttle, Thomas, Buckman, Luke Rush and Troy Kinchen have been cornerstones of the club’s success over the past decade. Since 2008, the Arsenal have amassed 3,806 hits and 2,439 strikeouts.

The team looks considerably different from the one that took the field in 2008. McEnroe joined in 2012, became an assistant coach in 2016 and took over as head coach in 2024, succeeding Ryan Hogan, who had managed the club since his brother Dan moved away in 2016. Eleven of the 24 players who appeared for the Arsenal in 2026 were in their first season with the team. They hit a combined .451, accounting for 96 of the club’s 258 hits and 53 of its 182 RBI. On the mound, they threw 35 2/3 innings, struck out 61 and collected six of the team’s nine saves. Suppa, Piotrowski, Kim, Travis Ilitch, Dylan Anderson, Nathan DeWitte, Dylan Heil, Matt Ervin, Easton Metral and Joshua Budzinski all made contributions in big moments during their first season.

The Arsenal’s past built the foundation. A new group helped finish the job.

Thanks to John Kutcher and everyone who runs the DCMSBL. Nineteen years in, this league is still the reason a bunch of guys, some of whom are way over 18, get to keep playing baseball on Sunday afternoons.