Orange Juice over Gold, 22*-15

The winds wreaked havoc throughout Creaker Land today, making for a very adventurous Opening Day for the ND.

I begin with a question. One of the best plays of the day was a mile high pop up to the middle of the infield courtesy of Mark Pitzlin. Rover Helen Kostoff waited and waited and waited for it to finish twisting in the wind, and finally made a stabbing catch. The question is if he had kept running and she let it drop would the silver streak have run all the way around the bases for a home run? I guess we will never know, thanks to Helen.

Orange had the antidote for the wind - Pitcher Mike Howard. Mike was able to tame and bend the wind to his advantage and the final score of 22-15 did not reflect how dominant he was. There were so many walks (for both teams) that we were only able to get six innings in, but in Mike's four we only allowed five runs, a pittance in Senior Softball.

The game started not only with the forecasted wildly gusty winds, but also with the Field 3 sun directly in the eyes of right handed batters the first couple of innings. This did not stop the Orange Machine, and we put up nineteen runs in innings 2-5 that gave us a 20-9 lead, and despite a little heartburn for the coach late, we were never in serious danger.

Up and down the lineup there were clutch hits and patient hitters taking walks to give themselves up for the team. Even the two who did not register a hit took three walks and each had a bases loaded one for an RBI. Between the second and third innings we batted around the lineup and there were eleven singles and walks good for nine runs. Very egalitarian.

And then late there were several clutch rocket hits that put an exclamation point on the win. Vic Santini blasted a gapper for the final two runs in our five run fourth. Rick Evans smacked a ball over the right fielder's head for a two run triple in the fifth. Jeff Waters followed that with his own right center gapper and also reached third. Kostoff opened the next inning with a rip down the third base line for a double. A couple of batters later Patrick Heide brought two home with another double over in right field.

The defense was shaky at times but came up with some big plays. In the third there was a putout at home that went from RC Leo Kay to Kostoff to catcher Nick Lauria who made a fine pickup. The next inning Rich Sanders turned a nifty double play playing 3B, and with runners at first and second getting the two lead runners.

And last but not least, the actual play of the day came on the first hitter in the last inning. LC Steve Rousso came in on a sinking line drive and made a sliding catch and hung on. And with that Gold's hopes sunk into the dirt, and they went out quietly.

Kay, Tony Gorgone, and Evans were 3-3 and everyone else contributed as we hit .684 as a team. Not a bad start!

* Scoreboard was wrong we only scored 22, not 23.