Gas Holes stick it to KBUT as rec league season heats up

Ewing wedding wreaks havoc

Before I get to the game of the week, how about a Barrel shout out to John Norton. As I strolled to Gothic Field Tuesday evening, June 24, the Couch Petitos and the CBeaVers were embroiled in a classic recreational league battle.

The game was tied up 11-11 in the bottom of the sixth inning and the Petitos had the bases loaded for Norton. Norton stepped to the plate and promptly cracked a game-winning grand slam home run as the Petitos went on to win 15-13.
Now to the game of the week, as last year’s rec league champions, the Gas Holes, faced KBUT.
First, it was good to see Gas Hole Mark Robbins at the game and upright after suffering a horrific fall during the alpine freeskiing championships this past winter.
Prior to the game, KBUT listed a number of excuses why they would probably lose. It started with the loss of their shortstop Kelly Jensen to his theatrical lighting duties.
It then turned into the fact that teammates Mark Ewing and Liz Rancourt, now Ewing, were married last weekend and the two leftover kegs from the wedding would be the team’s main source of carbohydrates during the game.
Then there was the fact that they were coming off a bye week.
And while most of them are perfectly valid, to an extent, the main reason for KBUT losing would be the fact that they were playing the Gas Holes, a relentless hit and run machine that comes at every opponent with the throttle wide open.
It wasn’t all Gas Holes all game long as KBUT came out swinging in the top of the first inning. Andrew Kastning drilled a two-run dinger over the left field fence and Mark stroked a solo honeymoon home run for a 3-0 KBUT lead.
That would be the last time KBUT saw the lead though, as the Gas Holes responded in the bottom of the first inning, scoring seven runs, led by their incredibly potent women’s side.
Base hits from Keitha Kostyk and Stephanie Ford pushed the first four runs across for the Gas Holes and Megan Dougherty capped the seven-run rally with an RBI single.
Judd Mesaris led off another Gas Holes rally in the top of the second inning with one of several opposite field doubles, and Kostyk and Ford connected again for RBI base hits, pushing the Gas Holes ahead 12-3.
As the game teetered on the brink of early disaster for KBUT, they fought back, scoring five runs in the top of the third inning.
KBUT stretched for every extra base possible with some base-running bravado. The fact that they were three innings into a keg may have had something to do with their loose legs.
Tim Wells led off stretching a single into a double and Liz brought him home with a single to right.
Amelie Kastning sent her brother home on an error-assisted RBI infield double and Carson Hoff singled and scored to cut the Gas Holes’ lead to four midway through the third inning.
Mesaris connected for yet another opposite field hit that he turned into a solo ITPHR (inside the park home run) but Mark slapped an RBI double to the gap in left center to keep the Gas Holes lead to four runs heading into the bottom of the fourth inning.
This would be the point at which the good beer buzz that carried KBUT through the first three innings turned sour. It’s a lot like when you’re at the bar and just draining shots at the pool table early on only to find yourself, all of a sudden, leaving them short and losing over and over and over again.
While the Gas Holes cranked hits at a furious pace, KBUT was struggling.
It’s as if, to return to the pool analogy, the Gas Holes would just say “rack ‘em” at the end of each inning.
By the end of the fifth inning, the Gas Holes were sitting on a 17-9 lead. By the end of the sixth inning it was 23-9 and by the end of the game, a.k.a. last call, it was 23-10.