The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“Make way for the
positive day”
It was a dubious start to the 2011 rec league season for the Rasta Hairnets. After winning the 2010 title, they stumbled through most of the 2011 regular season spending a majority of their time at the bottom of the standings. In fact, with just two weeks left in the season, the Rastas had only one win all year.
Earth Station Radio, formerly the Couch Petitos, underwent a significant transformation between the 2010 and 2011 seasons. Management decided to beef up their veteran roster with some youth as they looked to the fruit of their loins to bring in some power and speed on offense.
While in the past the Couch Petitos—I mean Earth Station Radio (ESR)—spent most seasons in the middle of the standings, the youth propelled ESR into a tie for first place with KBUT heading into the final week of play.
Thursday night, the two teams squared off at Pitsker Field with ESR playing for the regular season title and the Rastas hoping to turn the corner heading into the post-season.
The Rastas defense set the tone in the top of the first as Nicky O’Connor turned two of three outs with her play in the hot corner.
Rastas Dan Loftus and Carlos Velado connected for a couple of base hits and Scott Tyree drove them in with a double to right center and the Rastas had an early 2-0 lead.
The ESR youth movement pulled together in the top of the second to score a run as Henry Linehan singled and then scored on a single by Nolan Blunck.
The Rastas tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the second inning, led off by Amelia Poppe. With the infield playing in, Amelia popped a single over short and scored when Velado cracked a two-RBI triple down the right field line.
A series of “senior moments” by ESR then gave up three more runs over the course of the next two innings, and by the fourth inning, the Rastas had a 7-2 lead.
The Rastas continued to pile on runs, looking more and more like the Rastas of old, generating another five runs capped by a two-RBI single by Damian Teitelbaum to take a 12-2 lead before ESR finally found their bats.
Gabi Prochaska, Mike Montano and Linehan connected for base hits to load the bases. A Rastas’ error and a sacrifice fly from Scott Desmarais scored two ESR base runners. Erica Kelleher drove in another run, and a walk had ESR down by six with two innings to play.
According to the Rastas, the next two innings were testament to their turnaround. Earlier in the season they were in a similar situation only to end up losing.
But Thursday night, the Rasta resurrection appeared firmly intact as they tacked on three more runs and then shut the ESR offense down to seal the 15-6 win.
Both the comp and rec leagues are playing make-up games this week with the layoffs for comp league slated to start Monday, August 8 and the rec league playoffs opening on Tuesday, August 9.
