Brought to You by the Usual Suspects

It's always tough to beat Leo's because Bill Eppinga is one of the toughest pitchers in the East Bay Senior Softball world.

But today we had the answer with secret weapon Howard on the mound with an assist from a mostly stellar defense as he shut Leo's out for the first four innings. Ed came in and allowed just six runs in the final five innings and struck out one looking. The Crows eked out eleven runs for an 11-6 victory.

There were several key defensive plays that prevented a much closer game. We turned a couple of normal SS (Lee) to Rover (Randy) to First (Lamont) double plays. Charlie got a force out on a 'single' from LC to second base. 

Then there were the odd ones. On a fly out to Dave B in LC in the seventh, he threw it in to Rover Randy, who bobbled it just enough to tempt the runner to try to take third. Randy fired to Mark at the base and the throw was high and away, but Mark stretched and held the bag for the out. 

Finally there was a catch by Anthony in RC and the runner assumed he wouldn't catch it and strayed too far off first base. Anthony fired a bullet to first, but it was offline. Lamont came off the bag, corralled the errant throw, and dove to the bag to beat the retreating runner by a hair.

Randy led the team with five straight hits. Don was perfect with 3-3 plus a sac fly. Dave B continued his torrid pace with another three hits. Lee split the centerfielders perfectly for our only home run, but Anthony, Charlie, Ed, and Mark had triples. The first three came with two outs to score runs, and Mark's started a two run rally in the seventh.

On to the biggest game of the season next week, the first of two games against the Hornets in the next three weeks to determine first place.