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Wednesday Mar. 18, 2009

Green Hope wins conference opener against Lee County 6-4

Grant Shambley's leadoff triple

After the meltdown in GH's last game, there was a little anxiety coming into tonight's conference opener against Lee County. GH got back one senior starter from illness in Michael Sondag, but lost another when Nolan Poythress fell sick. The game took place on a very soggy field, which made running/stopping/etc. a bit tricky for the players, in addition to fielding a wet ball depending upon were it was fielded from. Still, a well played close game, which saw LC better in running the bases, the pitching was about equal, but GH out hit and out fielded LC, and that was the difference in tonight's game.

Max Povse started for GH against LC's Josh Kelly, both were effective but not over powering, and neither figured in the decision. Povse allowed 5 hits in 4 1/3 innings, struckout 2, but also walked 2 and hit a batter. Most of the hits were of the infield variety, but got into trouble in innings where he walked a batter. Kelly went 5 innings, also allowed 5 hits, struckout 4, walked 4 and hit a batter, but his trouble inning was due to errors.

Sondag's streach at first was ruled he was off the bag

Grant Shambley ends 3rd inning with a double play

Eric Brady's double gives GH the lead 3-2

Colantino tags out runner trying to score from 2nd on WP

Grant Shambley led the game off for GH with a triple, but was stranded there, as the first 2 innings were scoreless. LC looked like it might break the game open in the third, after a leadoff out because of a nice play by SS Eric Brady, LC responded with back to back singles, followed by a walk to load the bases with 1 out. The next batter was hit by the pitch to force in the first run of the game, followed by an infield hit to score a second run, still bases loaded with 1 out. But 2B Shambley made a great play on a soft liner up the middle, played it on 1 hop, tagged 2nd, and threw to 1st for a double play to end the inning.

GH finally got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the 4th, Adam Boghosian led off with a bloop single to right, followed by a swinging bunt from Anthony Colantino, which was fielded by the catcher, but his low throw to first wasn't caught. After a failed sacrifice bunt attempt registered the first out, David Josam's grounder up the middle was fielded by the pitcher, but his throw to 3rd sailed into left field, scoring 2 runs, with Josam thrown out trying to advance to 3rd, as the throw back to the infield was momentarily mishandled. The two out walk to Shambley was followed by a double from Brady, which scored Shambley, and gave GH the 3-2 lead after 4 innings.

LC regained the lead in the 5th, a leadoff fly ball to right field was dropped, followed by a sacrifice bunt, and a walk, for runners on 1st and 2nd with 1 out. Boghosian came into pitch, and hit the first batter he faced to load the bases, followed by a ground out to score the tying run, and put runners on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. A wild pitch scored the go ahead run, and when the throw from Colantino got away from Boghosian, the runner from second tried to score but was thrown out at the plate, as Boghosian tracked the ball down and threw back to Colantino.

GH won the game in the 6th, after a leadoff strikeout, Josam and Shambley both singled to the outfield. After a flyout for the 2nd out, Joe Pistacchio hit a high fly ball which was dropped by the SS to tie the game. Matt Nusbaum followed with a fly ball down the right field line which was perfectly placed between 3 fielders for a double, to score the 2 winning runs, as LC failed to score in the 7th.

Nusbaum "slides?" into 2nd after game winning double

Boghosian finished as starter Povse moved to 1st

Boghosian gets the win, as GH moves to 1-0 in the conference, and 4-1 overall.

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