Ross Park Champions

This blog has been a long time coming - there was some softball politics as we came back from 9 runs down in our last at bat to score 10 runs and walk-off eliminating GO.

Here's our team: F&HC


Here's the write up from the league (we are F&HC):

The final day of the post-season tournament saw three teams vying for the coveted tournament crown. Even before the games started, it was already clear that for the first time in a decade a team other than G.O. or GPDF would win it all.

The first game saw F&HC and HCRC hook up for the second time in the tournament. In their first matchup, HCRC dominated and dispatched F&HC by the ten-run rule. This game could not have been more different. F&HC raced to a 7-0 lead, and throttled the regular season runner-up by a final score of 9-1.

So the championship game was set. ESIDE, winner of the winner's bracket, and F&HC, winner of the loser's bracket, met for the first time in the tourney, and third time this year. F&HC won both regular season meetings, including once by the ten-run rule. This game was no different. F&HC jumped to an 8-0 lead, and lead 10-2 going into the top of the seventh inning. ESIDE finally found some offense, but it was too little, too late, as they scored three runs to make the final 10-5 score look closer than the game actually was. The F&HC win forced one more game for all the marbles.

So F&HC entered the final game riding high, having won two very easy games already, and now owning a 3-0 record against ESIDE this year. ESIDE, on the other hand, forced to play with a lot of subs because their regulars were back in school, and facing an opponent they had yet to beat this year, couldn't be much lower, right? Well, they got even lower when ESIDE lost the coin toss and found themselves the visiting team yet again. Even when ESIDE scored three runs in the top of the first inning to mark the very first time all day that F&HC found themselves actually trailing in a game, things still managed to get lower for ESIDE as their third baseman pulled up lame running to first base.

F&HC responded by scoring three runs in the bottom of the second to knot things up 3-3. ESIDE kept the pressure on by scoring two runs in both the third and fifth innings to jump to a 7-3 lead. F&HC fought back in the bottom of the fifth inning to pull within one at 7-6. From there the ESIDE offense went on vacation as they scored just one more run in the final two innings? Would it be enough? Could the ragtag ESIDE defense hold F&HC to only one run over the final two innings? Through five innings they had hung a goose egg on F&HC three times, while giving up three runs in each of the other two innings. The answer came quickly as F&HC put together their best single inning output of the night, scoring six runs in the sixth inning of what was to become their sixth win of the tournament. I'm not one to start conspiracy theories, but all those sixes... hmmm. So F&HC completed the three game sweep beating ESIDE 12-8.