sept12

On September 12, the Bruins opened their SRD Fall League season on a beautiful evening against Bank of Springfield (otherwise known as Franklin Middle School’s unofficial team). The game see-sawed back and forth, but Franklin banked the 9-8 win with their last at-bats. Tom Newell pitched a fine first two innings, but had to leave the game with Franklin ahead 8-6 after a Franklin hitter ricocheted a ball into left field off Newell’s ankle. Jacob Wear came on in relief to end the 2^nd inning. The Bruins tied the game in the 3rd but Franklin pushed in their winning run in the bottom of the 4th. [Yes, SRD games are normally 6 innings, but this one took awhile.] Joining Newell on the “hit” list were Wear, who also took a shot on the mound to his ankle, and catcher Trey Dhabalt who was hit by pitch in the last inning.

The loss, however, goes to Coach Wasser (the elder) who, after watching Franklin’s short lefty hitter swing late on three Wear pitches, brilliantly moved his center fielder to the left, only to see the Franklin lefty drive the ball to the right of the center fielder for a triple. Franklin’s next hitter put the ball in play, allowing the Franklin runner on 3^rd to score the winning run. [Hence the expression, “don’t give up your day job”.]

The Web Gem of the game goes to Greg Larson who, after taking over at short for Wear, went far to his left stopping a Franklin grounder hit hard up the middle and then recovering to throw out the Franklin runner at 1^st base, ending Franklin’s 2^nd inning rally. Hats off also to John Von Behren who made a nice catch of a pop up to 1st base and a nice catch of a foul ball that bounced off the light post back into the field (however the umps wouldn’t give us the out). Hats of to Dhabalt who worked hard behind the plate for three innings, making a fine recovery on a passed ball, tossing it back to Wear to nab the Franklin runner at the plate. Dhabalt also recovered on another passed ball, diving back to the plate and just barely missing the runner sliding into the plate (it looked like an out from the bench). Hats off also to Wear for two 3^rd inning put-outs, flipping grounders back to the mound over to VonBehren’s glove at first.

Hats off to the whole team for its 8-run production and for reaching base one way or another in 16 of their 28 plate appearances! Notable were first inning RBI hits by Joey Huddleston, Dhabalt and Brooks Fortune. Combined with walks drawn by Casey Sheehan, Wear, Larsen and VonBehren, the Bruins were able to jump in front early with three runs. Hats off to Anton Katalinich who started the Bruins 3^rd inning rally by reaching base on a Franklin error and scoring after David Wasser and Sheehan singled off the new Franklin pitcher. Hats off again to Larsen who drove in Wasser to tie the score in the 3^rd. Hats off to Huddleston who again put the ball in play with Sheehan breaking hard for home from 3^rd. Mighty Casey, however, was called out at the plate even though those of us with (of course) a better view than the plate umpire would swear Sheehan slid under the tag.

We are working with SRD to come up with the remainder of the schedule and will let you know.

IESA NEWS: The Bruins open their Regional Tournament play on September 19 at New-Holland-Middleton (which is at Middleton). The game is presently scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Game time will be confirmed shortly. If we win, we play September 21 at Chester-East Lincoln at 1:00 p.m. If we win again, we play for the Regional title September 23 at Chester-East Lincoln at 4:30 p.m. See you at the games!!