Thursday Mar. 19, 2009

Brady and Sondag lead Green Hope over Leesville Road 3-2

PreGame Anthem

Joe Pistacchio singles to left in 1st

Brady had big game in the field and at the plate

Two really good games turned in tonight by GH's Eric Brady and "Daniel" Sondag, as Green Hope moves to 5-1 on the year by sweeping Leesville Road. With a strong wind blowing out, it's hard to believe that the final score would be 3-2, but that's what happened. Good pitching and good fielding won out tonight.

Let's start with the good pitching, when the GH lineup had Sondag starting, it was strange that Sondag was wearing number 6 vs number 18, but a closer look at the lineup showed that Michael's brother Daniel, had been called up from the JV team to pitch, and Daniel Sondag looked nothing like a JV pitcher tonight. Almost pitching a complete game, Sondag had a live, moving, fastball which was hard for LR hitters to time. If he could have gotten his curveball into the strike zone, he would have dominated. He went 6 2/3 innings, with 4 strikeouts, 3 walks, and allowed 4 singles - and pitched a "ton" of pitches.

As good as Sondag was, he wouldn't have won without the stellar defense turned in by SS Brady. Brady tied another GH all-time record, held by Kenny Cargain, having 7 assists in a game, none of which looked routine. Unfortunately for Brady, GH's fine baseball photographer was not at tonight's game, so none of those plays were photographed. Even worse for Brady, his game winning home run also went unrecorded, what a nightmare !!!

Grant Shambley led off the game with a sharp single to center off LR's Cullen Reeves. After a fly out to left, Joe Pistacchio singled between 3rd and short, to put runners at 1st and 2nd with 1 out. After a wild pitch moved up the runners, and a popup for the second out, Adam Boghosian singled to drive in 2 runs and had GH up 2-0 in the 1st inning. Other than great plays by Brady, and a nice catch in center by David Josam, nothing much happened until the 5th inning.

GH scored one in the top of the 5th, as Brady hit a solo home run to make it 3-0 GH. But in the bottom of the inning, LR got that run back, as a leadoff walk, a single up the middle (which Brady almost reached), and a sacrifice bunt, had runners on 2nd and 3rd with only 1 out. A grounder to 3rd scored the first LR run, but Sondag was able to get the next two LR batters out. In the bottom of the 6th, a 2-out walk was followed by two consecutive GH errors to score the second LV run.

Sondag almost finished the game, but with 2 outs and 2 on in the 7th, Adam Boghosian came in to finish off the game with a strikeout. Sondag gets the well deserved win, and Boghosian the save. Brady, Grant Shambley, and Max Povse each had 2 hits for GH.