Two firefighters who allegedly flooded a Maryland baseball field over a spat involving batted balls striking parked cars have been criminally charged, officials said Wednesday.

Montgomery County Fire Capt. Christopher Reilly and firefighter Alan Barnes each face three misdemeanor charges — two of malicious destruction of property and one of disorderly conduct, court records showed.

They are accused of intentionally flooding the diamond at Montgomery Blair High School. Silver Spring Fire Station 16, where Reilly and Barnes work, sits just beyond the left field wall.

“The Montgomery County Fire Rescue Service takes this matter very seriously and is cooperating with the investigation,” Montgomery County said in a statement Wednesday. “An internal investigation is also underway.”

Both defendants “have been removed from operational duties and placed on non-public contact status pending the outcome of an internal administrative investigation,” the statement added.

Video from the Montgomery County Fire Department showed Barnes moving a fire truck to the rear of the station and Reilly appearing to aim the pressurized hose toward the field from atop the truck, the criminal complaint said.

Onlookers captured video of a towering stream of water cascading onto the field on July 17.

The water came pouring onto the field around 5:35 p.m., prompting Richard O’Connor, general manager of the Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts, and Brock Hunter, the manager, to confront Reilly, according to the complaint.

The waterworks forced the cancellation of that night’s Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League game between the Thunderbolts and the Metro SoCo Braves from Lorton, Virginia.

“He said, ‘I wanted to get your attention,'” O’Connor said in the complaint, referring to Reilly. “This act of vandalism was deliberate and caused great harm to our team.”

The canceled game also meant lost income for the team, according to O’Connor.

Court records did not show a lawyer for Reilly, who could not be immediately reached at any of the publicly listed phone numbers for him.

Reilly told police officers that he released the water for about one minute, according to the complaint. In the initial report he said that “his actions were driven by frustration due to repeated incidents involving baseballs striking personal vehicles, the fire station, and departmental equipment,” the complaint stated.

Barnes moved a firetruck in position for the flooding but didn’t touch the spigot, said his defense attorney Richard A. Finci.

“He didn’t do anything wrong, it was the captain who did the act of excessively watering the outfield,” Finci said. Barnes “moved the truck to where he was told to place it.”

Finci said the flooding was prompted by the firefighters’ long-running dispute with baseball players who have allegedly been hitting balls into station property. He said he didn’t know how long the firefighters’ beef has lasted.

It was not immediately clear if the dispute was only with the Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts.

“Batted balls regularly went over the outfield fence and net and struck some of the firefighter’s vehicles, broke windows, dented cars and even hit fire trucks — so there was a lot of damage,” Finci said.

The defense attorney said he believes both men should be able to beat the property destruction charges, saying the outfield suffered no damage and might have benefitted from the watering in a time of drought.

Still, the incident did not sit well with department brass.

“We expect all of our personnel to uphold the highest standards of conduct on and off duty,” Montgomery County Fire Chief Corey Smedley said in a statement. “The actions alleged in this case do not reflect the values of MCFRS or the professionalism of the men and women who serve our community every day.”