Monday May 11, 2009

Green Hope falls on Senior Night, 6-0 to Athens Drive

Nolan Poythress starts key 6-4-3 double play in 3rd Joe Pistacchio makes nice play on bunt in 4th Anthony Colantino gets lead runner at 3rd on bunt in 5th Adam Boghosian throws out runner as Colantino makes the tag Clay Cheston's first at bat for GH - he singles in the 7th Clay Cheston looks to be safe at home as ump has bad angle

GH looked out-of-sync right from the very start, and never snapped out of it, as Athens Drive shutout the Falcons 6-0. Tonight was senior night, and the last game of the regular season, GH finished as either co-Tri8 champions, or can be the sole champion if Middle Creek looses to Lee County on Tuesday night. A very good season either way - there isn't one player, coach, or parent, who wouldn't have gladly accepted finishing co-champion and 19-5 overall, before the season started.

Tonight however, was not so good, as GH had nothing going, so-so defensive, so-so pitching, and not even so-so hitting. Excuses can be made that because of the upcoming state playoffs, and a key injury, that players were playing out of position, and pitching options were somewhat limited - but really GH played worse than anything that can be attributed to those factors. Still, the loss doesn't really hurt GH, and certainly now GH has something to prove in the state playoffs.

GH's defense flopped in the 1st, a relatively tough fly to short center was dropped to start the game, followed by a record breaking overthrow to first on a routine grounder (20 feet and rising as it past 1st base), which put runners on 2nd and 3rd and no outs. This was followed by a past ball to score a run, but GH's starter Joe Pistacchio managed to get the next 3 batters out (2 by strikeout - the 3,4,5 batters for AD), AD up only 1-0.

Getting out of 1st giving up only 1 run, should have been a momentum builder for GH, but it wasn't. AD's starter Chris Williams held GH for the first 3 innings, not giving up a hit, walking 1, and striking out 4. Once Williams left the game after 3 innings, GH got some help from the AD relievers, getting 5 walks and 5 singles in the last 4 innings, yet could not manage to score a run. GH hitters had alot of bad at bats, not swinging at hittable balls, late on most swings, and "swinging for the fences" on crucial at bats. GH loaded the bases with only 1 out in 3 of the last 4 innings, yet did not score.

As the game progressed, GH's defense picked up a little, a couple of nice catches by Adam Boghosian in RF, Boghosian also threw out a runner at the plate trying to score from 2nd on a single, David Josam in CF prevented a run by making a nice throw to home on a flyout, and Pistacchio made a nice play on a slow grounder to 3rd. But as the defense was picking up, the pitching was fading - coach Miragliuolo's plan was to pitch Pistacchio 35-40 pitches, Max Povse 35-40 pitches, and finish with Nolan Poythress - hoping to get 2.5 innings from Pistacchio and Povse, and 2 innings from Poythress. None of GH pitchers had their best stuff, probably Pistacchio had the best effort of the 3, but Pistacchio and Povse didn't even get 2 innings each, so Poythress had to pitch almost 4 innings. AD received 7 walks, 4 hit batters, and 3 GH errors (that averages to 2 extra runners per inning), to go with their 8 hits tonight - it's actually surprising that AD only scored 6 runs (3 earned).

The good new is that seniors - Eric Brady, Clay Cheston, Brent McLeroy, Matt Nusbaum, Nolan Poythress, Michael Sondag, Jeff Weygandt - will get to play another game in the state playoffs. The highlight of the night was Clay Cheston getting an at bat, and getting a single in the last inning. Clay almost scored GH's only run, but was called out at home, on a play he looked to be safe.

If GH gets the #1 seed, then they host East Wake/Clayton on Friday. If GH gets the #2 seed, then they host Garner on Thursday.