MCSN: August 16, 2014

Down To The Wire

Week 8 Recap

By Rob Tong

Thu, Sep 18, 2014

Halos' Dan Armstrong takes a cut In this final week of regular season games, three teams were still duking it out for playoff positioning, with the fallout being that the #3 seed would need to play the 11am game against the #6 Fruit Of The Spirit.

8am: Shield Bearers at Caravan

While the Shield Bearers were playing spoiler, Caravan needed a win to avoid potentially falling to the #3 seed, which would mean playing a tripleheader with the 11am game since they were also playing at 10am.

As seems to be habit this season, the first three innings were a see-saw affair, with Caravan holding a slim 7-6 lead at the end of the third inning, despite Shield Bearers' David Fowler mashing a home run over the fence. The Shield Bearers missed a chance to tie the score in the top of the fourth when third base coach Scott Bartoszek chose to be conservative, holding up Lawrence Chung at third base on a single by rookie Raina Stoianof. Chung would eventually be left stranded at third.

From there, Caravan scored the game's next four runs to take a comfortable 11-6 lead going into the top of the final sixth inning. The Shield Toters tacked on a lone run to close the scoring in an 11-7 loss to Caravan.

"It was a real team effort with seven players driving in at least a run," said Caravan co-manager Randy Ruffolo.

Caravan improved to 7-2 while the Shield Bearers dropped to 3-7.

9am: Killer Beehs at Halos

The pressure was now on the Beehs to keep pace with Caravan but the Beehs had to get past the Halos to do so. The Beehs had a good chance, though, since the Halos were short-handed.

"Oh the irony," joked Halos skipper Rob Tong, referring to the Beehs usually being the team that is short-handed.

The two heavyweights exchanged blows, including the Beehs' Robert Rezek blasting a home run over the fence in the second inning. But the Halos still held a tight 9-8 lead in a tense back-and-forth battle over the first four innings.

The Beehs took an 11-9 lead with a three-run fifth inning, punctuated by a Joshua Pagan home run over the fence.

The Halos scratched out a run in the bottom of the sixth inning when rookie Chris Castallanet doubled home fellow rookie Scott Veigel, but the team still trailed 11-10 when it came up to bat in the bottom of the seventh.

Just two outs from victory, Halos' shortstop Robert Martinez doubled home rookie Jeff Kobayashi to tie the game. With first base open, the Killer Beehs elected to intentionally walk Rob Tong to set up a potential game-ending double play situation with Scott Veigel now up to bat. Veigel does have a knee problem that makes running difficult for him.

But then the unexpected happened: Beehs pitcher Rezek unintentionally walked Veigel to load the bases. Castallanet lined a clean single to plate Martinez for the dramatic walk-off win.

Despite outhitting the Halos, the loss dropped the Beehs to 6-4, clinching the #3 seed. The Halos, despite moving to 8-1, still did not clinch the #1 seed yet, though.

10am: Halos at Caravan

Both teams were guaranteed first-round byes, but the #1 seed was a more prized achievement (aside from the status) in that the #1 seed has a theoretically easier road to the Championship Game since the #2 seed would have to get past the truly "Killer" Beehs (assuming they would beat the #6 Fruit Of The Spirit) to make it to the Championship.

In a first-inning battle worthy of the two teams' contention for the #1 seed, both teams exchanged haymakers with five-run introductions. But after that, the Halos landed the knockout blows, scoring in every inning and outscoring Caravan 11-2 the rest of the way en route to a 16-7 win. Every Halo either had at least one hit or one RBI.

"A combination of the always aggressive baserunning by the Halos and sloppy defense by the Caravan allowed the flood gates to open to a 16-7 loss and a [lost] chance at first place," said Caravan manager Randy Ruffolo.

Though Caravan only had three fewer hits than the Halos, the bend-but-don't-break pitching by Scott Veigel held Caravan scoring in check.

"After an hour off between games, we looked to get back into the swing of things, but instead got caught looking," Caravan shortstop Alex Ruffolo said.

Caravan fell to 7-3 and the #2 seed while the Halos finished at 9-1, securing the #1 seed.

“Oh the irony.”

- Halos' Rob Tong on his team being more short-handed than the Killer Beehs in their game

10am: Playoffs, #6 Fruit Of The Spirit at #3 Killer Beehs

The Fruit Of The Spirit looked to win its first game of the season but there would be no forfeit by the Beehs, who actually outnumbered the Fruit's lineup as well.

Yet despite the Beehs jumping out to a 3-0 lead after one inning, this was not the lopsided bloodbath people were expecting. Spirit pitcher Sam Baturoni kept the Beehs in the ballpark and off-balance, backed by solid defense, as the Fruit Of The Spirit held the Beehs to a season-low five runs.

Unfortunately for the Fruit, they couldn't score more than five runs. Beehs pitcher Rezek kept Spirit slugger Ovi Tisler in the park and took a page from Scott Veigel's "bend-but-don't-break" pitching playbook. Though the Spirit outhit the Beehs 13-10, they couldn't string enough together to outscore the Beehs. The Spirit's Alexis Castro did her part to help the backend of the Spirit lineup with a 2-for-2 batting performance.

Looking ahead to the rest of the playoffs

The #3 seeded Killer Beehs faceoff against #2 Caravan. Both regular season matchups were close, with the home team winning each one. Caravan will be the home team next week.

But before that, #5 Shield Bearers will faceoff against #4 Tectonic Plates. The two teams split their regular season meetings, though the new-look Plates beat the Bearers in their most recent matchup.

The winner of that game will face the #1 seed Halos.

The 2014 Champions will be crowned by noon.

Who will that be? We'll have to wait to find out.