Friday Mar. 20, 2009

Green Hope takes advantage of Middle Creek miscues winning 8-3

Boghosian - that ball is going, going, ....

.... where the ???? is the ball, it's GONE !!!

Poythress - you can't get anyone out from that position

maybe you can !!!

Even though conference play is just beginning, tonight's game was going to be an important indicator as to where Green Hope stands in the conference this year. A solid Apex team, and a big hitting Athens Drive team, will be top teams in the Tri-9 this year. The question is whether another team can join them, and thus far the only candidates have been Green Hope and Middle Creek, hopefully we saw the answer to that question tonight is GH.

Hard to pinpoint the key to GH's victory tonight, so going through them, GH out hit MC, out pitched MC, out fielded MC, and out lucked MC, so that sums it up. Joe Pistacchio started and went the distance for the complete game victory. Pistacchio did't have his best stuff early, but got better as the game progressed. His final numbers were quite good, 7 innings, 7 strikeouts, only 5 hits, 3 walks, and hit a batter. He was helped by some fine defensive plays, and at the risk of ticking off Eric Brady and David Josam, the best defensive play of the year so far turned in by Nolan Poythress (helped by a Max Povse scoop at 1st).

Middle Creek took the early lead in the 1st, a single, stolen base, and RBI single, had them up 1-0. In the bottom of the 1st, GH loaded the bases with 2 outs, via walks to Grant Shambley, Brady, and Matt Nusbaum, mixed in with 2 strikeouts. This was followed by the absolute "luckiest" grand slam home run in the history of baseball, at any level, in any country, in any universe. Adam Boghosian hit a high fly ball to right field up into the infamous GH sun field, which the MC RF lost in the sun and dropped safely for a hit. The MC RF, still partially blinded by looking into the sun, staggered around in RF looking to find the ball, which was actually partially plugged into the sloggy outfield. By the time he regained his sight, and located the hidden ball, all the GH baserunners and Boghosian had circled the bases and scored. But two points need to be made on that play - #1 great hustle by Adam to run hard on a ball which looked like it should be caught, and #2 it's reminds me of what they said about a Willie Mays' hit in a World Series game, "the only guy who could have caught it - hit it".

MC came back with a run in the 2nd, the only sloppy inning for GH, a lone single mixed in with a wild pitch, passed ball, and throwing error. GH got that run back in the bottom of the inning, a two out double by Shambley, followed by a RBI single from Brady, GH 5-2 after 2 innings. But MC was still battling, in the 4th, a walk, a double, and an infield grounder scored MC's third run, which was immediately given back by MC errors in the bottom of the inning. With 1 out, Shambley reached on an error, went to 2nd on a wild pitch, and to 3rd when Brady singled to left, but as the throw came back to the infield, Brady got in a rundown between 1st and 2nd, chaos and 2 wild throws ensued, scoring Shambley and having Brady at 3rd. Pistacchio then singled to drive in Brady, GH 7-3 after 4 innings.

In the top of the 6th, Poythress made the great play at third, diving to his left, getting up and throwing hard to 1st, and Povse scooping it up for the out. The next batter saw Brady with a nice charging play to cement this game. Josam beat out an infield hit in the bottom of the inning, went to 3rd via two wild pitches, and scored on Shambley's sacrifice fly to right.

GH moves to 2-0 conference and 6-1 overall.