The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Is it news or olds?
by Than Acuff
If your team won the Wednesday league title you may be wondering why this article is not about that. Well, it’s because the deadline is Tuesday so you’ll just have to wait a week. Ah, the perils of a weekly paper. Fact is, by the time you are reading this, either Pitas OG’s or KBUT are already the Wednesday league champions. But, let’s delve into how both Pitas OG’s and KBUT got to the finals and then next week you can find out not necessarily who won but, arguably more important, why they won.
KBUT is on a miracle run and it’s all about momentum in the post-season. They gathered steam at the end of the regular season, winning their final game and then proceeded to win their next three games in a row, including a 14-12 win over Pitas OG’s, to reach the championship game.
Meanwhile, the OG’s were on an even more serious roll at the end of the regular season, winning their final five games and then taking the win in their opening playoff game before falling to KBUT, sending them on a trip to the loser’s bracket. But that trip, unlike the one my friend had at Hampton Coliseum, was quite pleasant as they beat Irwin Tuckers, CB Extreme and then, on Wednesday, August 14, the Rent-A-Gades, to reach the finals.
The OG’s and Rent-A-Gades squared off at Gothic field that evening with Pitas winning the earlier game against CB Extreme while the Rent-A-Gades sat and watched. A doubleheader can have one of two effects on a team. It can either warm them up for the second game or tire them out.
Wednesday night it had both effects on Pitas as they started out slow and then caught fire as the game progressed.
Meanwhile, it was a horrific start for the Rent-A-Gades as they were about as flat as a team could possibly be for a playoff showdown. While Mikey Strauch did lead off with a big hustle single, the next two hitters struck out looking and the third grounded into a force out. You can’t strike out looking in the playoffs, or ever for that matter in slow pitch softball.
Fortunately, Pitas appeared to be somewhat off-kilter as well to start. While Ben Hayes did lead off with a solo shot and Drew Stichter tripled and scored off a sac hit by Rayna Clark, a 2-0 lead is all they could muster after two innings of play.
The Rent-A-Gades woke up a bit with great defense in the bottom of the second inning and then scored their first run in the top of the third when Jeff Snyder doubled and scored off a single from Crystal Staggs.
But the OG’s, specifically Clark, had some defense of their own as she made another running grab in left field and their bats started to come around in the bottom of the third inning with a two-out rally to score four more runs. After the first two hitters popped out, Stichter drove a solo shot over the right center fence, Garrett McBride and Autumn Carpenter connected for RBI hits and Melvin Seyfried Chicken and Waffles put the OG’s up 6-1 with an error-assisted RBI triple.
The fourth inning was a lot like the third as the OG’s defense turned a 4-6-3 double play to stop any chance of a Rent-A-Gades rally and followed that with another four-run surge to pull ahead 10-1 heading into the fifth inning and then 12-1 by the sixth.
At this point it was now or never for the Rent-A-Gades. Pitas had yet to blow the game out of the water so there was still a lifeline out there in the ocean waiting for the Rent-A-Gades to grab onto.
They grabbed it with one hand in the top of the sixth inning, scoring four runs as a lead off single and a double from Jake Ellis had two runners in scoring position and no outs. Lauren Alkire punched a single through to score both of them and then wheeled home to score off a double from Peace Wheeler. Jeff Banford added another run with a sac fly RBI to pull to within seven runs.
But, the lifeline soon slipped from their one hand as Pitas scored two more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning and closed out the 14-5 win in the top of the seventh to earn a spot in the Wednesday league finals against KBUT.
