The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Tuesday/Thursday championship August 17
by Than Acuff
The Olympics are over and it’s time to get down to business as the Tuesday/Thursday league playoffs are wrapping up with the championship game on Tuesday, August 17 at Gothic field at 5 p.m.
But, before we go there, how about those Olympics? Bummer about our own Emma Coburn, even pros have bad days. But the games ended with a bang as they saved some of the best for last, race walking and team rhythmic gymnastics. I’m being dead serious here. Those events are incredibly hypnotic and not easy, and to bash on them and the athletes is ignorant.
I’m not gonna lie, it felt good to get that off my chest and was the reason I did not make it to what may have been the greatest evening of softball in the history of the Hares franchise so far. It turns out that last Thursday they racked up 67 runs over two games to take down the Talk and Steal Your Base, aka the Bangers, keeping their title hopes alive. That was it though for the Hares as they met their fate Tuesday night against the Psycho Rocks at Gothic Field.
The Hares looked to recapture the energy from that previous magical night and opened the game against Psycho Rocks with a couple hits to score one run. That one run paled in comparison to what the Rocks brought at the start of the game though.
The Psycho Rocks fell short of their title dreams last season and after getting knocked into the loser’s bracket this year by Pitas, are cornered like a ferocious badger and took it out on the Hares in the bottom of the first inning scoring 10 runs, nine of which came with two outs.
They were chugging to start with hits from Kyle Townsend, Amanda Brack and Eli Fiddler but Hares shortstop Bryce Miller made two plays to get the next two outs. Unfortunately, you need three outs and the Psycho Rocks just would not give it up.
Rosa Greely got things started back up with a RBI single. Ben Hayes followed with a two RBI triple, two more hits drove in two more Rocks runs and then Fiddler and Mallory Zimmerman finished off the two-out, 10-run rally with base hits forcing umpires to enforce the 10-run rule and end the inning.
It was still so early in the game though and the Hares are plenty capable of racking up runs, they just couldn’t. They managed one run in the top of the second inning off a sac hit RBI by Dave Clement but the Rocks came right back to score two more.
The Hares scored one run again and, again, the Rocks came back with three runs of their own assisted by some uncharacteristic miscues by the Hares defense. The Rocks made the Hares pay for their mistakes as they charged the bases to score two on a sac fly from Zimmerman and Greely connected once again for a RBI single and a 15-3 Rocks’ lead.
The Hares did mange another three runs to pose at least the semblance of a threat to the Rocks, but the Rocks remained… rock steady… to score five more in the bottom of the fifth inning. Brack slapped a weird area single to lead off and Fiddler pushed her home with a double off of the netting in left. Dakota Wiggins scored Fiddler with a double, Greely racked up her third RBI of the night with another hit and then Hayes capped the quick surge with a two-run inside the park home run.
The last two innings were fairly quiet from both teams as the Rocks remained focused on the task, getting back to the title game, and finished off the Hares playoff run 20-6. The Hares will always have Thursday, August 5 to talk about though. As for the Rocks, they just need to get past Pitas on Thursday, August 12 and Elevate on Tuesday, August 17 and they will always have a title to talk about. But that’s no easy road.
