Athens Drive starting pitcher Ben Snotherly could not have pitched better tonight, with a perfect game going into the 5th inning, but had to settle for a no-hit shutout after giving up a walk in the 5th. Snotherly struck out 10 of the first 13 batters he faced, 7 of those strikeouts looking (5 in a row at one point). Green Hope batters only hit 4 balls into fair territory tonight, and 2 of those were the last two batters of the game when Snotherly was visibly tired and slightly upset from issuing the walk to ruin his perfect game.

Snotherly only allowed 4 fair balls and struck out 10 Green Hope batters in 5 innings

Pre-game, all the news was good, Athens had pitched their two best pitchers (Betts and Williams) earlier in the week, and 2 Athens starters, who on Tuesday against Green Hope had gone 3-4 and driven in 3 of Athens' 5 runs including a home run, couldn't play tonight. Unfortunately, pre-game didn't translate into the actual game play.

Offensively, tonight Green Hope had a very similar first 5 innings as on Tuesday against Betts. After 5 innings in both games, Green Hope batters had struck out 10 times, and no hits and 4 fair balls tonight, versus 1 hit and 6 fair balls hit on Tuesday.

Unfortunately for Green Hope, this game never got to the 6th and 7th innings so they could bat against a tired pitcher, as this game was way over after 5 innings.

Sondag (left) was able to shut down Athens while Colantino (right) can't pickup a low throw home

May as well cover the Green Hope highlights first, it definitely will be a shorter list. Green Hope's #1 star was Daniel Sondag, he came in and shut out Athens Drive for 2 plus innings. He has pitched well all year, but has just run into bad luck, either no run support or bad fielding, but has given Green Hope alot of solid innings in spite of it. The #2 star would be catcher Anthony Colantino, playing while still hurt, gunned down a base runner attempting to advance on a ball in the dirt which he blocked. I guess the closest player to a #3 star would be Grant Shambley, only starter not to strike out, had 2 of the 6 Green Hope at bats which didn't result in a strikeout, and made a couple of catches in the outfield. (The bar for "stardom" was set relatively low tonight !!!)

Colantino throws out a runner atempting to take 3rd as Tyler Jones makes the tag

A recap of the game would go as follows, Max Povse started for Green Hope, a leadoff Athens ground out was followed by another grounder which was booted, followed by a single, followed by another grounder which was booted to load the bases. A strike out for the second out was followed by a Chris Williams double to score 3. A single by Michael King scored another, followed by a walk, and another double by Matt Ruth scored 2 more. Athens up 6-0 after 1 inning.

Williams' double (top) scores 3 in the first, and he later scores on a King single (bottom)

The second inning started with a single by Daniel Mason, a wild pitch, a fly out, a strike out, a walk, and a double from Chris Williams to score 2 (5 RBIs for Williams). That was it for Povse who had already thrown 61 pitches, and in came Sondag who closed out the inning and kept Athens scoreless for the next 2 innings.

In the 5th, Jonathan Grudee came in to pitch and was greated by a leadoff single from Michael King, followed by another single from Peede, followed by a walk to load the bases with no outs. Mason singled to drive in 1, a grounder to short produced a bad throw home to score another run, followed by Snotherly's triple to right center to score 3. Blair Betts doubled to the same spot to score Snotherly, and with subs taking the next three at bats, no more runs scored.

Povse (1-2) takes the loss, and Green Hope falls to 3-5 in the conference and out of contention for the conference championship. It's clear that Holly Springs and Middle Creek will be battling for the conference championship, with Athens Drive and Fuquay Varina close behind and it appears that Lee County is also a contender this year. The second half focus will be to somehow make the state playoffs, but right now the Falcons are on the outside looking up at 5 teams going while they aren't.