TC You Take It, No You Take it, CC Diablos over WC Cardinal 13-12

In an appropriate end of the TriCity season, the Diablos tried to gift wrap the season finale by playing generous defense throughout, and trailed after a five run Cardinal top of the seventh, 12-11. But the Cardinal, said, no, thank you, you are the hosts, so here, load the bases and let's see what happens.

What happened was that Bill Hoffman stepped up with the bases loaded and one out, and earned the game ball by slapping a clutch line drive into left field to tie it up. But then the hitting star of the game, Mark Childress, who already had a home run and a single came to bat. All he had to do was put it over the heads of the drawn in outfield, which of course he is quite capable. Instead he hit one of those floating bloopers over shortstop and the Cardinal fielders just couldn't reach it and it was walk off, game over, 13-12.

In the first inning, the Diablos started off with three excellent plays: A fine running catch in right by Mike Daley, and back handed grab on a smash to second baseman Greg Lagomarsino's right to get a force at second base, and an acrobatic play on one of those balls that is almost always a hit in Senior ball. A little pop up between the pitcher, SS and third baseman that takes a funny hop and usually eludes everyone and they pray it will go foul. Instead, Bob Carver snagged the high hop and fired to first to end the inning.

Then we pretty much took the rest of the game off on defense. Well, except SS Jim Krochka did take care of two hard liners. One went off his glove into the air but he had the presence of mind to find it and grab it and flip to second for a force out. The other he got at least two credit cards off the ground between short and third to snare a hard line drive ticketed for left field.

The lineup was very balanced. Besides Childress 3-3, everyone else was either 2-3 or 1-3. Jimbo Wilcox hit a clutch two run single in the first to become the only player besides Childress (3 RBI) to have a multiple RBI game.

The after game BBQ was fun, and even though it was not the best played game of the season, it is always fun to win a walk off, and end a fantastic season for the Diablos.