The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Move back into tie for second place
The Couch Petitos are pulling out the stops for the final week of the regular season, calling on ace southpaw pitcher and Couch Petitos veteran Ron Chlipala to return to the mound. Chlipala answered the call Tuesday night and turned in a solid outing, but it wasn’t enough to carry the team past AC Tile.
AC Tile is good, and if everything falls into place for them they could make a run at the rec league title.
Tuesday night, things clicked for AC Tile at just the right time as they edged out a 10-9 win over the Couch Petitos.
The Petitos came out ramped up for a win, hoping to turn things around with one win in their last five games. The energy was there and so were their bats as the Petitos built a 3-0 lead.
John Norton led off the top of the first with a single and raced home on a double from Bob Giannone. Gabi Porchaska, fresh off a stint in the Abu Dhabi leagues, tapped a sacrifice RBI and Molly Frame cracked a single up the middle to score Giannone.
AC Tile came right back to score three runs in the bottom of the first off hits from Katrina Birdsall and Mark Strick and a sac fly RBI by Mark Bortolin.
The AC Tile women led a second offensive charge in the bottom of the second with Birdsdall connecting for another base hit RBI and Jennee West sending a RBI single to left field.
The Tile defense then shut down the Petitos in consecutive innings turning in back-to-back double plays.
The first was picture perfect when AC Tile pitcher Charles D. “Bondo” Bond, Jr. scooped up a ground ball and turned to fire to shortstop Melvin Seyfield covering second. Seyfield tapped the bag and fired to first to complete the 1-6-3 double play.
The following inning, Seyfried pulled down a line drive and tapped second base for the second inning-ending double play in a row.
The father/son defensive team of Mark and Ben Reaman pulled off some heroics of their own for the Couch Petitos. Ben pulled off a leaping grab at shortstop to rob Strick of a base hit. The next batter grounded to Ben and he pulled it in and tossed to father Mark, covering third base for the force play.
The Petitos offense recovered from their last two double play offensive debacles to rally and tie the game 6-6 in the top of the fifth inning.
Sarah Block and Norton opened the inning with back-to-back base hits. Porchaska drove the first run in with another single and Ben cracked a double to right to score two more Petitos and tie it up.
The Couch Petitos turned in a stifling defensive effort in the bottom of the fifth to set themselves up to take the lead, but fell prey to another 1-6-3 double play.
AC Tile opened up a four-run lead in the bottom of the sixth inning as Birdsall cracked an error-assisted RBI triple, always hit your cutoff outfielders, and scored on a single by Bondo.
Strick tacked on a third AC Tile run with a double and Lindsay Gillon capped the rally with an RBI single, pushing them ahead 10-6.
But with the top of the Petitos batting order up next, a comeback was in the works.
Norton and Maggie Dethloff did their jobs to get on base and Giannone pushed them both into scoring position with a sacrifice hit. Porchaska drove Norton home, Ben drove Dethloff home and John Dethloff walked to score a third Petitos run and load the bases with two outs.
But Seyfield struck again on defense, scooping up a ground ball up the middle to tap second base for the force and preserve the 10-9 AC Tile win.
