Sometimes the Shenanigans in Senior Softball Simply Surprise Me. How's that for alliteration? It would be better if I were named Sam. Then - Sometimes the Shenanigans in Senior Softball Surprise Sammy.
This week it was for the scheduling of the playoff tournament. Leah and the Town of Danville has senior softball somewhere down below helping the homeless in their priority hierarchy, and in Danville that is pretty low. They did eventually get around to making a schedule - putting one game at noon, but who was paying attention to the times anyway, because we all assumed 10:00. The usual 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 single elimination with the winners in the final this coming week.
Then Mike Rittenhouse snapped into action. For some reason he wanted to play Leo's in the first round. Was he afraid of the Mudcats? It made little or no sense. Leo's and the Mudcats had almost identical seasons, finishing 6-10 and 5-10 respectively. Whoever heard of a 1-3 and 2-4 tourney? But the Ritt got his way, not that it made any difference at all, since we both took care of business.
The Crows of course didn't care who we played in the first round - they were just someone that got in the way for our last rematch of the season with the Hornets. All we had to do was go out on the field and prove we deserved the chance to come back at the Hornets. And so we did, 20-12. It began with a sigh of relief that Mudcat Tony was absent, who may well be worth eight runs by himself.
The Crows are a very balanced team, yet sometimes someone rises up and takes the center spotlight for a week. This week it was Ed Cook. Not that there weren't plenty of other heroes with their moments - I'll get to that - but look at Ed's line: 4-4 with a double and a triple and five RBIs. And sent the Cats packing pitching the last five innings after Charlie Pastor staked him to a 13-3 lead. Ed had a bases loaded bases clearing double to increase our lead to 9-2 in the third (followed by a Mark Childress two run homer to finish the inning). Later he hit another bomb that scored the fourth and fifth runs in the seventh inning (that put the exclamation point on the game as it made it 20-8). Despite everyone urging him to go home, he ran straight through third base. I'd like to say it was because he knew the fifth run had scored ahead of him, but I think it was more likely he was shutting down from exhaustion.
Charlie was also 4-4, with a triple. Anthony Paschal had three hits including a double and a home run, and Randy Cobb also homered and had three RBIs in the leadoff spot. Barry Walter, Lee Levig and Mark also had three hits.
Lee made the play of the day and it was only 15 feet from home plate. Randy and he had some sort of game within the game going and decided they should switch spots in the sixth when Randy was supposed to catch. Lee got his chance to shine when he pounced out of the home box to dive for a little pop up to get an out. Very demoralizing for the batter and a fine play. Elsewhere Mark made a nice stop and putout at 3B in the third, and LT turned a double play on a shot up the middle when he stepped on second and fired to first. And we turned double plays in the last two innings (I think both started by Rover Randy) to completely shut down whatever fantasy the Cats had about coming back late.
Basically your routine win and a warmup to get our last crack for bragging rights against the Hornets - we need to be at the top of our game this week and they will once again come loaded up. They have a healthy fear of us now - and let's show them why!
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