Avalanche holds off pesky Hares

“Alright you Hares”

It’s been a rough go of it for the Hares this year. Well, every season is a bit rough for the Hares if you focus solely on the win-loss columns, but this year has been particularly tough.
Despite their wins, typically one a season, and losses, all the rest of their games, they always have a full squad for every game, a big ol’ bag of peanuts and smiles on their faces. All of this while taking a beating at the hands of teams one-third their age. Now that I think about it, actually, the Hares get a big Sports Barrel shout out for showing up season after season only to take a beating from teams one-third their age.
This season though, they’ve been scraping a team together all season and have had a full squad maybe two, three times all season. Furthermore, they had scored a franchise-low 65 runs and were 0-12 heading into their game Tuesday night against the Avalanche at Pitsker Field.
But, anyone can win on any given evening and especially at Pitsker Field and if the Hares were going to get a win this year, it was going to be late in this season against the Avalanche. The Avalanche, the closest in age to the Hares, typically start losing players to family vacations in August. This year, they were hit with a double whammy at the end of the season with some key women gone for the aforementioned reason and their new youth movement missing in action as well.
As a result, confidence was high on the Hares bench and they carried that confidence into the first couple innings of the game, led by some big defense from Don Bunnell at first base. Twice Bunnell flagged down line drives down the first base line to deny the Avalanche extra base hits.
The Hares then broke the scoreless stalemate in the top of third inning to take the lead when Kurt Giesselman and Dave Clement singled to put two runners on for Maddie Stichter. Stichter singled to left center and as Giesselman rounded third, he caught the Avalanche defense hesitating and sprinted home for a 1-0 lead.
Unfortunately for the Hares, that lead was immediately wiped out as Sam Robards led off the bottom of the third inning with a solo inside the park home run.
Feeling a bit of the pressure of becoming the only team to lose to the Hares this year, the Avalanche offense woke up to tack on two more runs in the bottom of the fourth inning.
John Dethloff led off with a single and reached third on a double from Mark Reaman. Diane Markowitz pushed Dethloff home with a sac hit RBI and then Scott Yost put the Avalanche up 3-1 with a RBI single.
Conversely, feeling a little pressure at losing a shot at their only win of the season, the Hares bats came alive in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Clement dropped a single in shallow left, Maddie Stichter singled and then Frank Stichter drove a run in with a base hit.  Sam Lumb put the Hares back on top 4-3 with a two-RBI single and again the Avalanche were in the hot seat.
Again they responded immediately, and again Robards started it all. Robards doubled and scored on a double to right center by John Norton to tie the game 4-4. Dethloff pushed Norton home flaring a single over first base to put the Avalanche up 5-4 heading into the sixth inning.
The Avalanche added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth and were sitting fairly comfortably on a 6-4 lead with the middle of the Hares batting order stepping to the plate.
But those pesky Hares would not go down as Frank led off with a double and moved to third on a sac hit by Tammy Armour. Lumb scored Frank with a base hit RBI and reached second on a single by Bunnell.
The pressure was all on Carlene White to keep the Hares hopes alive for their first win as she stepped to the plate in the top of the seventh inning with two outs, her team down by one run and runners in scoring position. White was 0-2 on the night but she handled the situation like a seasoned veteran. After a swing and a miss and watching two pitches miss the strike zone, she was looking at a full count with the game-tying run on second.
Rather than hope for another ball, or take a nervous half ass swing at a pitch, White locked in on the pitch and drove a base hit over shortstop to score Lumb and tie the game 6-6.
The Hares’ hopes were soon dashed though as the Avalanche stepped to the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning and rattled off a series of base hits to put runners on second and third with one out. Jill Lindros walked up to the plate and as the infield moved in on her, she found some added inspiration and popped a base hit just over shortstop for the game-winning run.
The Hares do have one more shot at finishing the season with a win as they face the Meatsticks in the final game of the regular season. While it may be a bit of a stretch to think the Hares will upset the Meatsticks, let me remind you, they were in a similar position last year and pulled it off.