The River Cats' 2011 season came to an end Friday night at Raley Field with an 11-6 loss to the Omaha Storm Chasers in Game 3 of the Pacific Coast League Championship Series.

After falling behind two-games-to-none in the best-of-five series at Omaha, Sacramento had returned home needing to win three straight -- as it did against Reno in the first round of the playoffs.

But the Storm Chasers took an 8-0 lead in the sixth inning Friday and held on to win their first PCL title in their 14th season in the league.

Sacramento fell short of its fifth PCL title, denied in the championship series for the second time in three years.

"For three games, they just beat us," said second baseman Wes Timmons. "They had better hitting, they had better timely hitting and they had better pitching."

Mike Montgomery pitched five shutout innings to earn the win for Omaha, striking out six. Travis Banwart, who allowed six runs -- only two earned -- in 4 2/3 innings, took the loss.

The Storm Chasers closed out the series with emphasis, scoring double-digit runs for the second straight game. Lance Zawadzki drove in three runs on four hits, David Lough hit a two-run home run and seven different players scored at least once for Omaha.

Andy LaRoche and Tyler Ladendorf each drove in a pair of runs for the River Cats, who scored three times in the sixth and twice in the seventh.

Each time, though, the Storm Chasers would score in the next half-inning. Sacramento first baseman Chris Carter hit a long home run to left field in the ninth -- his fourth of the playoffs -- but it was too little, too late.

In manager Darren Bush's first season at the helm, the River Cats posted their best regular-season record since 2003 and fought back from a two-games-to-none deficit in the first round of the playoffs for just the second time in franchise history.

"It's going to stick with me," Bush said of the championship series loss. "But what's going to stick with me more is how many guys got the opportunity to go to Oakland this year, and how many guys improved. We won 91 games this year (including playoffs), and we were in the finals. So I'm proud of these guys all the way around."

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