MCSN: June 6, 2015

Expansion Pack

Week 1 Recap

By Rob Tong

Thu, Jun 11, 2015

The sun was out for opening day Opening Day this year marked a momentous occasion: 10 years of the Moody Softball league! That's 10 full years longer than the average Hollywood wedding.

To celebrate a full decade of Moody Softball, the league returned (for this year only) to a TMC Community-based team format, which was how the league's first year originally formed its teams. Those players not in a Community were allowed to form their own teams, and other churches submitted their own squads as well. This expansion swelled the number of teams to a league-record 11 teams.

A quick and very warm welcome to all the non-Moody teams: may you always lose to the Moody teams.

8am game

Now that we got the, uh, niceties out of the way, the season opener featured two Moody teams whose collective motto must be "It ain't easy being green." At least FROG and the Fellowship Of The Ring had green shirts with different shades (yeah, looking at you, Team America and Holy Walkamolies).

FROG jumped (sorry, too easy of a pun) out to a quick two-run lead in the first and could have had more had Ringbearer pitcher Rob Tong not walked slugger Joshua Pagan with the bases loaded.

The Fellowship responded with a five-spot in the bottom of the first and added six more in the second inning, thanks to a two-run blast over the fence by Jacob Dodds.

Pagan hit his own towering shot over the fence in the top of the third but the Amphibians ultimately couldn't keep up with the Fellowship, as the Fellowship scored in every inning to cruise to a 22-7 win despite missing its starting pitcher Scott Veigel.

9am game

The In Focus mascot may be an osprey but it may as well be a phoenix, as it rose from the ashes of MCSN history to play the 9am game against the Holy Walkamolies.

This is not your father's In Focus team though, even for Joshua Fraats...whose father actually, uh, did play on previous In Focus teams. The first father-son combo to play in Moody Softball made an impressive debut, with the father hitting an inside-the-park home run in the first inning as the second batter of the game. In Focus manager Dan Cameron then roasted a deep drive into the furthest nether reaches of straightaway center field in the first inning. And Isac Malmgren's own deep shot into the gap helped jump start the Ospreys to a 4-0 lead in the first.

Even the Holy Walkamolies took their own name in vain, muttering, "Holy Walkamolie" at the In Focus transformation.

"My team came out of the gate ready to win!" Cameron said. "We had our first four people score in the first inning. Godfrey Gillett started us out well with a good single and then John Fraats brought him in with an in-the-park home run! Even though we did not win my team communicated extremely well and we put everything out on the field!"

But despite that (and all the exclamation points Cameron used), the Walkamolies gradually battled back to a 7-5 lead after three innings of play thanks to some stellar defense by, uh, "Holy" shortstop Stan Wiedeman.

"[In Focus] was making all their hits straight through our infield," Cameron said. "I can recall only a couple pop ups out to the outfield. Everything else went on the ground near short or second."

The Ospreys put up four runs in the top of the sixth to grab a 9-7 lead and almost made it hold up. But the Walkamolies scored two in the bottom of the seventh to snatch a, uh, tie, from the jaws of defeat. The game ended in a 9-9 tie. Too bad the Walkamolies didn't get just one more hit: then they would've been the Walkoff-amolies.

Ironically, the Walkamolies did not draw any walks in the game. Maybe they should be called "Holy Non-Walkamolies".

In past years, In Focus may have lost. But Cameron pointed to "the marvelous ability of Glenn Lindquist who came up as rover and made several good stops and good catches", as well as "the hard work of our shortstop Rob McMahon and our pitcher Bruce Riegel" for almost pulling out a season-opening win.

10am game

A depleted but still mighty Covenant team squared off with newcomer Harvest Reapers at 10am.

A squad of Les Carter, Ethan Sinnema, Ovi Tisler, David Zuperku, Bryan Beeh, Jason Folkerts, Elsa Wiese and Michael Best would already put fear in the hearts of opponents on any other Saturday. But this Saturday, it was a mildly disappointing team...only because the team was missing star sluggers David Fowler, Andrew Tisler and Jeremy Huntington.

“[Umpire] Sam reluctantly called [Zuperku] safe.”

- Covenant's Ovi Tisler on the football-player-sized Zuperku intimidating the Reaper catcher to not apply the tag.

Yet for all the Covenantal firepower, the team only notched one run in the first three innings. Unfortunately for the Reapers, the game doesn't end after three innings. What's more, Harvest's Red Team couldn't capitalize, scoring only one run themselves in that same time frame.

Covenant did put up three runs in the bottom of the fourth, but Harvest matched them with three runs of their own in the top of the fifth to keep the game tied.

"Game was a defensive barnburner for the first 4 innings," Covenant's Ovi Tisler said. "Every ball we hit to the left side of the field was scooped up with ease. Once we stopped hitting it to the third basemen and started taking some walks, we were able
to steal a couple runs. Our defense was impressive despite having only nine players. As awesome as our starting LF is (me, of course),
I moved to catcher to move people around and the
defense didn't skip a beat."

Indeed, Reapers manager Rufo Calimlim highlighted the stellar defensive play of third baseman Tim Gibbons and left fielder Merissa Seefried.

Covenant tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the sixth, but the Reapers could only plate two more to finally fall 7-6.

"A good effort overall by the Reapers in their inaugural game, whose rally in the top of the 7th came up short on a questionable intentional walk," lamented Calimlim, whose team actually outhit Covenant 21-14.

Tisler noted Ethan Sinnema's solid play both offensively and defensively, as well as a memorable play by hulking Dave Zuperku. "Zup nearly flattened the catcher as he was coming around on his inside-the-park home run. Although the ball beat him to the plate by a good three seconds, the catcher justifiably feared for her life as someone 200 lbs heavier than her came rumbling down the line. As she flinched and didn't apply the tag, Sam reluctantly called him safe."

Tisler may not realize he called Zuperku a 300-pound person, just as Calimlim may not have realized he referred to himself in the third person when recalling notable Reaper player performances. "On offense, Zach Phillips and Janson Roberts reached base in all four at-bats," Calimlim noted. "Tim Gibbons led the team with two runs scored. Elvin Velez and Rufo Calimlim both drove in two runs a piece."

Despite the Reaper loss, Calimlim still found something to cheer about. "Congratulations to Irene Rosal for playing in her first softball game and recording an RBI!"

11am game

In the 11am game, the Crossroads/Veritas Flames became the first team in league history to forfeit on Opening Day when they attended a 2pm wedding. It was the easiest win Caravan ever had, albeit not an exciting win.

12pm game

The final game of the day was the league's first-ever 12pm start, featuring a contest between newcomer Edgewater Dugout Donuts and fellow newcomer LaSalle Mustard Seeds.

The Sweet Treat batters each got a hit but to hear Donuts manager Mandy Verduin put it, they were pretty pathetic.

"Lowlight: we were rusty; Highlight: we left a little less rusty," Verduin said.

Mustard Seeds manager Dave Neely had the same woe-as-me summary of his team's performance.

"Good news was it was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun playing," Neely said. "If all the teams are as much fun as the Donuts, we will have a great season. Bad news, we couldn't pitch, hit or field, even worse news I was the pitcher."

Interestingly, the two teams forgot who was home. I thought this stuff only happened to people playing the early bird, double-down-on-the-caffeine games. With 50-50 odds of guessing correctly regarding who should be home, they ended up guessing wrong, with the Donuts taking the home team position. Apparently, no one thought to, y'know, look it up on the web site on their phone. More caffeine!

But the game itself was quality stuff. The Donuts' Dave Shier hit the game's only home run but the Seeds firmly planted themselves (another low-hanging pun) in the game, with a see-saw game that saw five lead changes before it was all over. And while every Donut had a hit, the Seeds matched the Donuts in total hits.

Going into the top of the seventh, the Donuts clung (man, this is easy) to an 8-7 lead and needed just three outs to secure the win but the Seeds sprouted (sorry, couldn't resist) a game-tying run. No worries for the Donuts, as they raced out of their Dugout (see how I did that?) to celebrate a walk-off run-scoring single in their half of the seventh, edging the Seeds 9-8.

For a little levity, and following MLB teams' lead, the Donuts like to play walk-up songs for each of its hitters who come up to bat. According to Verduin, Matt Terry had the best walk-up song: How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?

Looking ahead

Next week promises more intriguing matchups. First, Fellowship Of The Ring takes on the Shire-like happy folks of Dugout Donuts in the 8am game. The Donuts gave a pun-ny warning: "They better be ready for a sprinkle attack," Verduin said. The Fellowship threw one right back: "I hope they don't leave us glazed & confused by the end of the game," Tong replied.

The 9am game pits mighty Covenant against the resurgent In Focus Ospreys, who are not backing down from the challenge.

"As the season drew nigh, I had dreams about the day that we play the monstrous Covenant team," Cameron said. "I have played with several of them in the past and they are a talented group of people! But as the season started and I have seen my team play and heard how Covenant did, I KNOW that we are ready to take them on. This is not a claim that it will be an easy win. It won't. But I believe that my team has the heart and talent to take them on and even IF we lose, I know that we will have given it our all."

On the other hand, Covenant seems to think this year's In Focus team is no different from past varieties. "We'll hopefully have a full squad next week, although we probably can win with just 5 or 6," Tisler said. "Dan Cameron-led Moody Church teams haven't won a game for more than, like, 19 months. How many games did he play in those months? I don't know exactly but it's gotta be like 100 or so. I'm not scared of someone who's 0-100-1 (who ties in softball?)"

FROG challenges Caravan in the 10am game, followed by the Mustard Seeds pitted against the debut of Team America, who must feel like they were frozen in ice for several decades after their bye week this week.

"We expect to be much better next week," Mustard Seeds' Neely said. "Everyone was asked to sleep with their mitt under their pillow."

The final game next week matches the Harvest Reapers against the whippersnapper Crossroads/Veritas Flames. Given the close games this week, it will be interesting to see how these tantalizing matchups fare next week.