The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Championship game at Gothic Field
by Than Acuff
As much as it pains me to write this, I must: The Hares’ season is over. I truly believed that this was their year and I was so looking forward to the celebration. I was even going to create a new celebratory shot for them, the Geriball, Geritol and Fireball mixed together.
But, alas, all good things must come to an end and the Hares’ good thing came to an end losing to KBUT Tuesday night at Gothic Field.
How about that KBUT team? Always liked those guys. Good to see them doing so well with their nicknames, custom songs played for their hitters and their direct association with one of the, if not THE, greatest radio station of all time.
Granted, I grew up listening to commercial radio based out of the D.C. metropolitan area. Howard Stern and then the Greaseman on DC101, Uncle Johnny (the Unc of Funk) on Q107 and eventually the Weasel on WHFS were my stations until I started hitting the Washington D.C. head shops to buy a “water pipe” and some “whip its” and locked myself in my room, put on the Kenwood headphones and rotated between the White Album, Quadrophenia, Skeletons from the Closet, Surrealistic Pillow, Exile on Main Street and Upstairs at Eric’s. Not a big Pink Floyd fan. Maybe it had to do with the album The Final Cut. Just not into songs about World War I.
Nevertheless, KBUT rocks!
As for their post season run thus far, after a huge stumble, KBUT has rallied like none other. KBUT entered the post season the number two seed but was shocked, as was most of the softball world, when they lost their opening round game to the last place Elevate team two weeks ago. That loss sent KBUT to the losers’ bracket to fight for survival for four games in a row.
They passed a huge test when they took down the Whetstoners last week and then had their next biggest test Tuesday night at Gothic Field when they faced the Hares.
The Hares played patiently at the plate in the first inning as John Hopper (hold on, let me get my Crayon out) struggld on the piching mound and welked a run in, but the KBUT bats opened hot to rattle off five runs in the bottom of the first led by a two-run dinger by Will Mixon and capped by a RBI single from Hopper.
The KBUT bats then went from hot to scorching in the bottom of the second inning to fire off a succession of base hits and runs. Mixon crushed his second home run of the night to get things going. Meredith McNamara tapped a single over short, Scott Stewart and Heather Heinz followed with base hits and Shawn Harrington, Gerry Heal and Ed Dujardin did the honors of driving runs in for a 12-2 KBUT lead.
The Hares woke up to score a couple runs in the top of third as Frank Stichter singled and then sprint-hobbled his way around the bases to score on a double from son Drew Stichter. Jen Hartman slapped a single to score Drew and the Hares were surging until Stewart chased a pop up from first base into shallow right for an over-the-shoulder grab to take the wind of the Hares’ sails.
KBUT tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the fourth inning as Hopper druv a RBI tripel to cinter feeld and Claire Karbon tapped an infield RBI single. KBUT followed with some of their “butt tight D” in the top of the fifth inning as Andy Frank pulled in a hot grounder down the first base line to get the out and Reed Betz tracked down a line drive off McNamara’s glove to fire to first from deep short, holding the Hares scoreless.
But the Hares were determined to battle until the bitter end and put together a threatening run in the top of the sixth inning. Drew led it off with an inside the park home run and base hits from Geoff Sanders, Dave McGuire and Sam Lumb led to two more runs to pull within seven runs of KBUT.
Drew had one final say, closing out his softball season with a bomb. Drew played close to 200 innings of softball this summer and knocked the crap out of the ball, sending a two-run shot high off the roof of Town Hall. But KBUT shut the Hares down before they could get running one last time, sealing the 14-9 win. KBUT followed that win by taking down Elevate in their second game of the night and earning another trip to the rec league finals to face the Eldo on Thursday, August 20 at Gothic Field.
