The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Murphy pitches seven-hit shutout
The Lobar Rollers knocked the number-one seeded Isotopes down into the loser’s bracket at Gothic Field Monday night, thanks in large part to Lobar pitcher Brian Murphy.
For years I’ve watched a variety of pitching styles ranging from the side-step delivery to the high delivery and everything in between.
I’d call Murphy’s style, the quick and dirty combining a rapid-fire style and aiming for three specific targets—inside shallow, inside deep and meat.
As soon as the batter is in the box, Murphy delivers the ball, denying them whatever warm-up ritual they typically run through before hitting.
The quick and dirty, backed by some solid defense, led to the 5-0 Lobar win. While the Isotopes defense was equally solid turning a number of double plays, you can’t win games without scoring runs.
The Lobar opened the top of the first inning with base hits from Brigid Piccaro and Ronnie Hughes. Michael Villanueva looked to go yard in his at-bat but Terann Maudsley robbed him of the dinger, snagging the ball at the fence in deep center field. Hughes tagged up to score on the fly ball and Melissa Neuner punched a single to left to score Piccaro and put the Lobar up 2-0.
After holding the Isotopes scoreless in the bottom of the first inning, the Lobar tacked on two more runs in the top of the second inning.
Lori Adair led off with a single and scored on a power bunt, error-assisted, RBI triple by Stephanie Clark. Clark then scored on a sacrifice fly by Roland Mason but Isotopes shortstop Jeffery Snyder reeled in a bad hop grounder up the middle off his ear to stop the Lobar offense in their tracks.
Both teams were held scoreless through the next four innings as the defenses held tight to turn key outs in each inning.
The Lobar looked to add to their lead in the top of the fourth with a runner on and one out, but Snyder scooped a ground ball, tapped second base and fired to first for the 6-3 double play.
The Isotopes defense came up big again in the top of the fifth inning as Barb Peters gunned down a runner stretching for home to deny another Lobar run.
Mason led the Lobar defense in the bottom of the sixth inning spinning on a toss from right field to throw out a runner at third base and then turning his own 6-3 double play to end the inning.
The Lobar added one more run to their lead in the top of the seventh as Ashley “Preggo Power” Chahine rapped a RBI single to right center, but the Isotopes turned a picture-perfect 5-4-3 double play to hold the Lobar close heading into their final at bat.
Regardless of their efforts in the field, the Isotopes bats remained silent through the bottom of seventh inning, scraping together an error-assisted single before the Lobar retired the next three hitters for the 5-0 win.
Big news from the game running concurrently with the Lobar game: The Tongue and Groovers eliminated the Rockstarrs from the post season with a 17-8 crushing at Pitsker. The Rockstarrs now join the Black Holes, the Wildbunch and the Rent-A-Gades in the stands for the remainder of the post-season, while the Tongue and Groovers keep hope alive in the loser’s bracket.
