GET OUT OF THE WAY, JEFF!

And she wasn't yelling at me!

Orange played a nearly flawless defensive game, and beat Blue-Yellow 11-2. In one of the several "Plays of the Game", there was a tough popup in the sixth inning toward second base with runners on first and second that 2B Jeff Waters nearly caught. Instead, it bounced off his glove and bounded to Rover Helen Kostoff, who neatly stepped on the bag for one out. But by then Waters' momentum took him into the baseline between second and third. The next thing you know, there was an ear splitting yell, "Get out of the way Jeff" as Helen fired to third to get a double play. Waters ducked to save his life, and her yell must have thrown her off balance, so she bounced it, but Mike Byrnes deftly corralled it.

It was one of several excellent defensive performances for Orange today. In the first Tony Gorgone at SS had a hand in all the outs, handling two difficult grounders and one popup. In the first two innings there were two balls thrown to first in the dirt and the manager scooped them both up. Not to be outdone, Rick Evans pulled off the same feat in his one inning at first base in the eighth.

There were many more heroes on defense but before getting to that it must be noted that Mike Howard was on target the whole game, baffling the Blue hitters. He pitched the first four and the last three innings and allowing ZERO runs, and had a swinging strike three strikeout, Mike Elmore pitched the middle two and if it weren't for the one big Blue Yellow hit over the outfield, he could have duplicated the zeros.

In the fourth, Jeff Waters, playing SS, showed he was listening to his Little League coach when told to always get the lead runner. There was a slow grounder with one out, and it was clear it would be very difficult to turn two. So he fired home to C Rich Sanders (as the manager yelled "NOOOOOOO"), and the bases were still loaded but now there were two outs. A fly ball to LF Michael Callahan ended the threat.

In the fifth, another unconventional double play went from Waters to Gorgone at 2B, and he went home to Sanders again. Just the old 6-4-2 DP. On one of those Sanders picked it off the dirt continuing the trend. In the seventh, Sanders had one of "those" innings playing second, catching a tough popup and a line drive to get two of the outs. Finally, Steve Rousso made a great running catch on a sinking liner to center to get the first out in the ninth, basically snuffing out any hope of a Blue comeback.

On offense we built a 6-0 lead through four with big hits in the first by leadoff Leo Kay (double), Callahan, Gorgone, and a double by Vic Santini. The game stayed in reach for the Blue guys at 6-2 until the seventh. Back to back triples by Callahan and Evans started things off and then consecutive singles by Santini, Rousso, Kravin, Waters, and a fielder's choice grounder by Kostoff sealed the deal with the game's only five run inning.

Overall, Santini, Rousso and Waters were 3-3, Elmore was 2-2 with a walk, and Kay, Callahan, Gorgone, and Byrnes were 2-3.

A great team game!