The Lords and Ladies went down quietly in the top of the first, with Jeremy striking out for the first time this season ending the inning. In the second, more of the same, with the team shut out despite loading the bases with one out.
The bats seemed to come alive in the third, with Chris leading off with a single, and advancing to second on Tim's single. Pete followed with a single of his own, and Jeremy knocked Chris in with a sacrifice fly to right. Stumpy came up two batters later and hit a sac fly of his own, making the score 4-2 for the Turtles at the time.
The Turtles then scored three more in the bottom of the third to take a 7-2 lead. All seemed lost, but the resilient Lords and Ladies were just getting warmed up (literally... for some reason, it got a lot warmer as the game went on, and the sun almost came out!)
Kate scored from first on a double by Chris in the top of the fourth, and the Lords and Ladies were well on their way to chipping away at the Turtles seemingly insurmountable lead.
After holding the Turtles to a doughnut (mmm... doughnuts) in the bottom of the fourth, the Lords and Ladies finally came alive to the tune of 4 runs in the top of the fifth. Pete and Jeremy lead off with a single each, then Rob, long-lost former team member Josh and Brian followed with singles to score the four-spot.
With the help of a brilliant 1-3-4 double play (Chris to Stumpy to Kate), the Lords and Ladies held the Turtles to a single run in the bottom of the fifth, making the score 8-7 going into the penultimate (or so we thought) inning. Five straight singles to open the top of the sixth, a sac fly by Stumpy, a double by Rob and a single by Josh plated 5 runs for the visitors, shooting them out to a 12-8 lead.
The Turtles seemed surprised by that offensive output, and that spurned their bats to action. Dinking and dunking their way through their line up, the Turtles responded with 6 runs of their own in the bottom of the sixth to take a two run lead into the seventh.
Going into their last at-bat (seemingly...), the Lords and Ladies were pumped. Taking a horribly replicated musical cue from Jeremy about this being "the final countdown", the Lords and Ladies girded their loins and tied the game up with singles each by Chris, Pete, Jeremy, Denise and a sacrifice fly by Stumpy. All they needed was stellar defense to hold the Turtles in the bottom half of the inning.
And hold them they did! The Lords and Ladies allowed a couple hits, but in the end, no runs to end the seventh in a tie!
After a brief discussion about the tie breaking rules of the OPGSPA, the two teams decided that since it was still light out (barely), and no one was waiting to play, they should just play the eighth and see how it turns out!
Sadly, the Lords and Ladies put out barely a whimper in the top of the eighth, with a lone single by Josh, his fifth of the day.
Hoping for more of the same, the defense bravely took the field in the bottom of the eighth. The Lords and Ladies retired the lead off batter, then allowed two straight hits, putting runners on second and third. A long fly ball, an amazing catch by Bobby, and the runner tagged at third. Season over.
BOXSCORE
|
TEAM
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
TOTAL
|
|
L & L
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
1
|
4
|
5
|
2
|
0
|
14
|
|
TURTLES
|
4
|
0
|
3
|
0
|
1
|
6
|
0
|
1
|
15
|
GAME HIGHLIGHTS
Stumpy - 1 for 2, 3 sac flies, 5 RBI
Josh - 5 for 5, 5 singles, 3 RBI
Jeremy - 3 for 4, 3 singles, a sacrifice fly and a couple nice catches in centrefield.
Pete - 4 for 5 with four singles.
That's it for the 2012 Lords and Ladies softball season. Stay tuned to this blog in the near future for some posts including a season recap, and lots of game photos.
Stay safe, and stay healthy this off-season. See you in May!
