Friday Apr. 24, 2009

Panther Creek pulls off big upset, beating Green Hope 9-7

Panther Creek completely outplayed GH tonight for 3 1/2 innings, building a 7-0 lead, only to be tied 7-7 in the 6th. PC bunted their way to 2 runs in the 7th, and held on for the well deserved victory tonight.

To most Tri-9 observers, it was only a matter of time before Panther Creek was going to beat a top team this year. They outplayed Fuquay Varina two games ago, but didn't capitalize on all their chances, then in the 7th with a 1 run lead, they gave FV an extra out, and with two outs (game should be over) on a 3-2 pitch, FV's Phillip Cotten blasted a 3 run HR, and PC looses 6-4. PC follows that game up with their first conference win ever, over Lee County 5-4. Given those facts, you would think that GH would be ready to play a tough game tonight, and that simply was not evident by the GH's performance.

Daniel Sondag keeps Gray Mazzone from big lead at 1st - yet hits the next batter - giving him 2nd anyway

This is a hard game to document, because clearly PC outplayed GH, better clutch hitting, better defense, and way better hustle and desire to win. Yet PC also made some mistakes which GH took advantage of, and GH started to make some plays themselves - imagine that !!! So it's difficult to categorize the game as whether PC won, or GH lost - but if a team out hustles the other team, then they (PC) should be credited with beating the other team, and that's what happened tonight.

PC's Andrew Freed is out at 3rd, but PC is up 7-0 Adam Boghosian homers to make it PC 7-3 after 4 innings Routine Double Play for Brady - but bad throw to 1st gets only 1 Adam Boghosian is out at home in the 6th inning

The top of the 1st really demonstrated the difference in play between the teams tonight. GH starter Daniel Sondag gave up a leadoff single to PC's Gray Mazzone, then after 3 or 4 throws to 1st to keep Mazzone from stealing 2nd, on Sondag's first pitch to PC's Anthony Weatherly, he drilled him in the face to put not only Mazzone on 2nd, but Weatherly on 1st. A past ball advanced the runners to 2nd and 3rd, and after a strikeout and a walk to PC's Andrew Freed, the bases were loaded and only 1 out. On the first pitch to PC's Stephan Guy, he hit a soft liner to CF for a hit, which scored the runners from 2nd and 3rd, and with no play on the runner from 1st going to 3rd, the GH CF lobbed the throw into the cutoff man, meanwhile the batter Guy just kept running and walked into 2nd base, completely unnoticed by anyone playing defense for GH - great hustle and awareness by Guy, but still couldn't give him a double. So down 2-0, only 1 out, and runners now on 2nd and 3rd, Adam Boghosian was brought in to pitch for GH. After a walk, Boghosian got the next two batters out, but during that effort, his wild pitch scored another PC run. PC up 3-0 after 1 inning (on 2 singles).

Panther Creek's starter Stuart Slaughter will never be mistaken for Nolan Ryan, just not quite his velocity, but he had no trouble with GH's lineup through the first 3 innings, facing only 10 batters, and preserving a PC 3-0 lead into the 4th. The GH defensive effort in the 4th was just abysmal - after a leadoff strikeout and a walk, a chopper up the middle was booted putting runners on 1st and 2nd with 1 out. This was followed by PC's Mazzone's slow chopper to SS which was not charged and Mazzone easily beat out for a hit, loading the bases. PC's Weatherly was then hit by a pitch to score the 4th PC run, and still the bases loaded with only 1 out. A groundout to 2nd scored the 5th PC run, to be followed by PC's Andrew Freed who hit a slow grounder to the left side, which he clearly was beating out for a hit, but the high throw to first over Max Povse's jumping attempt - how high a throw is that, 13-15 feet min ??? - allowed 2 more runs to score. The end to the inning and that play was Freed not only going to 2nd on the over throw, but attempting to go to third, figuring since PC had just scored 4 runs, and the ball was now farther from home plate than any hit they were responsible for, might as well go for it, but was thrown out at 3rd. PC up 7-0.

Not to be critical of Panther Creek, but in the last 2 years, they probably should have won about 6 conference games, the scenario is always the same, they play the first half of game great, establish a lead, then run out of pitching, stop hitting, and make some defensive mistakes, to end up losing. That scenario seemed to be playing out tonight. In the bottom of the 4th, GH scored 3 runs, started by Eric Brady's single, moving to 2nd on a steal, to 3rd on a groundout, and scoring on Max Povse's sac fly to CF. This was followed by Michael Sondag's double, and Boghosian's HR to make PC 7-3 after 4 innings.

In the GH 5th, PC's Slaughter was releived by Sean Coughlin. David Josam beat out an infield single, followed by walks to Grant Shambley and Eric Brady to load the bases with 1 out. A strikeout for the 2nd out, was strangely followed by 2 consecutive balks to score 2 GH runs - how lucky was that (?) - PC 7-5 after 5 innings. And GH tied the game in the 6th, Sondag ledoff with a high popup 10 feet in front of home which was misjudged by Coughlin and dropped safely for a hit. After a walk to Boghosian, Daniel Cunningham was brought in to pitch for PC. Nolan Poythress laid down a sac bunt to first, but the throw ended up wild and into RF, scoring 1 GH run, and putting runners on 2nd and 3rd, with no outs and PC up 7-6. With PC poised to blow another game, GH helped out as Jonathan Grudee's grounder to 1st was fielded by the first baseman, and as he tagged Grudee out, GH's Boghosian tried to score from 3rd, but was tagged out at home for the 2nd out. Matt Nusbaum pinch hit and singled to tie the game at 7-7 after 6 innings.

GH's Nolan Poythress had come in and pitched the 6th, throwing mostly 50 MPH curve balls to strikeout the side, as this isn't his normal routine, don't know why this was done. Anyway, credit to Panther Creek as in the 7th, they took advantage of this, and laid down back to back bunts which ended up being hits. Both runners stole 2nd, so with no outs, PC had runners on 2nd and 3rd, and were driven in by J.T. Primm's single to center, giving PC a 9-7 lead. In the bottom of the 7th, PC again tried to give the game away, but GH just didn't want it. Brady ledoff with a fly to right center which was dropped, then a foul out to 1st, was followed by Povse being hit by a pitch (McLeroy running), another foul out to 1st was dropped, but given a another chance GH responded with another foul out to 1st which was caught for the 2nd out. What looked should be a double steal ended up being only a single steal ?, and GH grounded out to 3rd to end the game.

In 7th, PC's 2nd straight bunt results in another hit as Guy jumps past Povse and Poythress

GH's lackluster performance included PC getting 4 unearned runs, 5 walks, 3 hit batters, 2 wild pitches, 2 past balls, 4 stolen bases, 2 batters reached base on errors, plus 2 other throwing errors. Of the 36 PC batters who came to the plate tonight, ONLY 5 BATTERs HIT BALLs which reached the outfield (4 singles and a fly out). Yet PC scored 9 runs from that offensive explosion, getting more infield hits (5) than outfield hits (4), and really relied on all the GH help mentioned above to score. It looked like GH's infield seemed surprised on slow hit grounders that PC's batters were hustling down to first to beat out hits - a really bad defensive game for GH's infield (including it's catcher), along with a bad pitching performance (way to wild) cost GH this game. But credit to Panther Creek for playing hard and winning this game.

GH falls to a 2nd place tie in the Tri-9 at 7-2, and 15-4 overall.