SBL 2008, WEEK 6
SUNDAY, JUNE 28
FREE AIR ARENA
JUKEBOX HERO 3
THE
Jukebox Hero, coming off its first win since
game one, couldn’t make it 2 in a row against Bryan Frankovich
and his struggling Queens, even with a very un-jukebox lineup including the
returning Jared Clayton.
In addition to J.C., jukebox featured
Danielle Hennon and Lee Nespor
of the Funbridges, the Laser Cats’ Bob Spohn and Voltron’s Val Taylor,
who was also seeing her first action of the season.
The game got off to a good start for JBH, as Hennon led off with a single. Clayton followed up with a middle homer, much
to the delight of Frankenhaters everywhere. Unfortunately for the jukebox fans, that
would be pretty much the only offense the heroes would muster, as they would
collect only 5 more hits over the final 27 outs.
The
John Davidson, fresh of a trip to the
Hennon hit half of
her 6 shots for the ‘box.
FLESHY FUNBRIDGES 13
The Funbridges
continued to own the series with fellow bottom feeders the Kamikazees,
and now have earned half of their four wins against the team hailing from the
land of the rising sun.
Danielle Hennon was
the catalyst in this one, going a phenomenal 10 for 10 to earn only the fourth
perfect game in league history, and the first since July of 2004. Her 10 hits are the most ever in a perfect
game.
As
expected, both teams got out of the gate pretty slowly. After four innings, the FF were clinging to a
403 lead when Lee Nespor connected on his only shot
of the contest, a 2-run homer that capped a 3-run inning. In the very next frame the Funbridges got 5 more, and this time it was captain Rando with the big stick, as his three-run jack blew the
game wide open.
With all the runs they would need on the
board, the stingy Funbridge D held the Kamikazees without a hit for the remainder of the game to
improve to 4-7 on the season and into third place in the American conference.
For the FF, Knight added a 4 for 10, 1
assist, 1 psyche out, 2 double plays performance. Hennon finished
with 4 rbi.
Mike Moroco paced
the losers with a 2 for 9, 2 homer, 3 rbi
outing.
OATCAKE HATE MONSTERS 20
JUKEBOX HERO 4
The perfectly balanced Oatcake lineup was just too
much for the jukebox heroes in this one, as the monsters stretched their win
streak to five and kept their momentum going as they geared up for a showdown
with the first-place laser cats.
Every member of the monsters hit at least 6 shots, and
each drove home at least 4 runs.
Jukebox, conversely, had not a single player with 6 hits or 4 rbi. The end result? A six-inning beatdown that sent jukebox reeling for the second time this
week.
Terry Hall led the victors with a 6 for 10, 1
homer, 7 rbi, 1 double play
performance. Matt Mcclelland
chipped in 7 hits and 4 rbi
with a pair of double plays. Both
Shelley Goodpastor and Katie Kelly added 6 hits, with the latter driving home 5 runs.
Jeanne Mentrek led
the way for jukebox with 4 hits.
Also suiting up in the yellow pinnies were the Laser Cats Billy Deforest, John Offutt of
the Banana Demnocracy, and the Kamikazees
Greg Lackey.
THE BANANA DEMOCRACY 9
VOLTRON 18
Not even the return of Ben Smith was enough
to propel the Banana Democracy to a win against National conference rivals Voltron on this one, and the blue and gold stumbled to a
fourth straight loss after sitting at .500 only a few weeks ago.
The game was hotly contested over the first
half, with both teams trading runs and the lead. The Democracy was kept in it by John Offutt,
who had a career game that included a personal-best 4 homeruns.
Voltron, meanwhile, played their normal style of single and
double baseketball, which I’ve got to tell you isn’t
all that entertaining to watch. After
five full innings the score stood at 5-4 in favor of Voltron.
It was from that point on that the voltron bats finally came alive. They would score three in the 6th,
then after the BD plated 5 of their own in the top of the seventh to once again
close the gap, explode for four more in the home half of the inning. A 6-run 8th would follow, as Jared
Clayton drilled a grand slam, to put a cap on the scoring and earn another win
for the Voltron.
Clayton put up 8 for 11, 7 rbi, 6 double play numbers for the
winners. Mike Frankovich
added 7 for 11 shooting with 6 rbi. Billy Weisberg came off the bench with a 3
for 5, 3 rbi, 1 assist
showing.
John Offutt finished with 6 hits in 11 at
bats with 6 rbi for the
Democracy. Corbett tipped in 3 double
plays.
VOLTRON
16
THE LASER CATS 20
Voltron kept their
momentum going right into their second game, as they were the beneficiaries of
playing back-to-back and used it to their advantage as they sprinted out to a
15-3 lead against the undefeated Laser Cats.
The Cats, who have notoriously started slow
this year, once again found themselves in an early hole. But unlike in previous occurances,
this was a very, very deep hole… and against a very,
very good voltron squad.
With their backs to the wall and down 12 runs
heading into the bottom of the fifth, the Cats finally awoke from their
slumber. They would answer Voltron’s 5 in the top of the inning with a quintet of
their own. A Terry Shernisky
assist of a Billy Deforest missed single with two outs extended the inning and
allowed Nate Tomko to bang home a 3-run homer to get the ball rolling. From that point on, it was all Cats.
As the Voltron bats
went silent, garnering only one hit after the 6th inning, the Cat
attack went into full effect. They would
collaborate for 6 more runs in the sixth before finally taking the lead in the
7th on another Tomko 3-run shot.
A few insurance runs would be put on the board in the 8th to
keep a last-second grand slam out of the equation, and Terry Shernisky’s double play of Val Taylor to lead off the ninth
was all but the final nail in the coffin for Weisberg and Co.
Tomko finished with 8 hits in 12 at-bats with
3 homers, 8 rbi, 3
psyche-outs and a pair of double plays. Shernsiky also connected on 8 hits, with 5 rbi, 6 double plays and an assist. Billy Deforest went 8 for 11 with 3 rbi.
Mike Frankovich led
Voltron with a 7 for 11, 7 rbi, 1 assist outing.
THE
The queens of the rest stop reacharound once again failed to produce more than two
players for a contest, and as a result the league allowed Lee Nespor to suit up for his former team to get a little extra
playing time. And to
screw Frankovich.
The plan kind of backfired though, as Lee
would drill 2 homers and drive home 5 runs over the first four innings. Apparently he didn’t get the damn memo.
Fine. Sub in Ben Smith for Lee.
Ben did quite a bit better than Lee, at least
from the offensive side of things. He
went 0 for 3, with neither shot having much of a chance. Still, it seemed to those in attendance that
Ben was actually trying to make shots, and coupled with the fact that he didn’t
once elbow Frankovich in the ribs while attempting a
double play, the league saw fit to remove Ben from the contest for someone who
would most certainly get the job done.
Enter Big Rando. Stats for the game: 0 for 5, 3 dumb things, 2 physical assaults
on Bryan Frankovich.
Good Job, rando!
Still, it wasn’t enough, as
Lee Nespor, and to a lesser extent Ben Smith, had
done too much for even Rando to overcome, as the Kamikazees were in a hole so deep that even a Mike Moroco grand slam in the top of the ninth could get them
out of it. End result, an 18-17 win for
the
Aryn Christman went 10 for 14 with a homer and 8 rbi for the
In a losing effort, Moroco
drove in 11 on 6 for 14, 3 homer shooting with 4 double plays and a psyche out.
The win vaulted the queens
into first place in the National side of things. The Kamikazees
still suck.
THE FLESHY FUNBRIDGES 3
THE BANANA DEMOCRACY 18 (6 innings)
The Banana Democracy ended their losing skid in
emphatic fashion, halting the Funbridges by 15 in a
mercy-shortened 6-inning affair.
In what was pretty much a polar opposite
showing of their first game for both squads, the Democracy came out guns a’ blazin’, particularly from Ben Smith. Smith put up an impressive 10 for 12, 1
homer, 10 rbi, 3 double play line that included the
game-ending walk-off hit. The Funbridges meanwhile were ice cold. The team who had a single player get 10 hits
in their first contest of the day failed to collect 10 total as a team in this
one, and their only moment of glory came in the top of the fifth when Lee Nespor plated Rando Knight with
his only hit of the game, a 2-run homer that momentarily pumped a bit of life
into the brown and pink.
That’s funny to type. Brown and pink.
In addition to Smith’s heroics, the BD got
identical 6 for 12, 4 rbi
showings out of Kip Corbett and John Offutt.
Corbett tipped in 2 double plays.
Danielle Hennon hit
half of her 6 shots for the losers.
OATCAKE HATE MONSTERS 11
THE LASER CATS 12
The game of the week, and what had to be
considered the game of the year heading into this week, was last on the slate
for week six. And what a contest it was!
Though the skies opened up in the early
innings and most of the game was played on a wet court with a wet ball and
under heavy fire from God’s showerhead, these two SBL behemoths collided in an
epic war that lasted almost 45 minutes if you include the 20 minute break we
had to take because it was pouring so hard we couldn’t keep the lines on the
court.
In the end, and the contest came down to the
very last shot, it was once again the Laser Cats who stood with their arms
raised thanks to Terry Shernisky. Shernisky, facing a
3-run defecit, swished through a middle homer with
the bases loaded to propel his team to their second come from behind win of the
day and 12th win in 12 chances overall.
The game was tight the entire way. The Cats held a one-run lead over the first
five innings, but were never able to pull away from their American rivals. When the rains picked up around the 6th,
so did the Oatcake assault, as they would collect 5 runs in the inning, capped
by a 3-run Terry Hall homer, to take a 9-5 lead before the game was halted by
the rain.
When the skies cleared and the court was
re-lined, the game resumed and the Cats went to work on the Hate Monster
lead. They chipped away over the next
few innings, scoring
one run per to make it 8-9 heading into the final stanza. In what now looks like a pretty foolish move,
Hall removed Matt Mcclelland in favor of Katie Kelly,
who was late arriving for the game, for the final inning. After Oatcake added a pair of insurance runs,
it was Kelly who made all three outs in the final inning, the last being a Shernisky double play with two runners on base to keep the
game within reach and set up the last-inning heroics.
Shernisky went 7
for 10 with 7 rbi and 5
double plays for the winners. Tomko
added a 6 for 10, 1 homer, 4 rbi, 3 double play line Bob Spohn drilled half of his ten shots.
In a losing effort, Shelley Goodpastor went 9 for 12 with 4 rbi. Terry
Hall added 6 rbi.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Terry Shernisky,
Cats
TEAM OF THE WEEK: the laser cats, beat voltron
and the monsters in exciting fashion
GAME OF THE WEEK: laser cats over oatcake