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CHRONICLE
SPORTS
CAPE
LEAGUE |
SENIOR SOFTBALL
Mariners Top Cardinals To
Clinch East Division Wildcard
Eric Adler
HARWICH — For the first time since
1997, they’ll be a playoff game at Whitehouse Field. Steve Englert,
soaking wet, was proof of that.
The Harwich Mariners washed away the
pain of an 11-year playoff drought by dumping a bucket of ice water on
their beloved field manager following a 5-3 wildcard-clinching win over
the Orleans Cardinals Wednesday night.
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| Closer Willie Kempf and catcher
Mark Fleury celebrate Harwich’s 3-2 win over Y-D Tuesday.
That victory, plus Wednesday night’s 5-3 win over Orleans,
put the Mariners in the post-season for the first time in 11
seasons. ERIC ADLER PHOTO |
“It was cold,” said Englert of the shower
he received in centerfield, “but I’ll take it anytime.”
Harwich will head to Eldredge Park to
take on the Cardinals on Saturday at 7 p.m. in the best-of-three East
Division championship series. Cape League All-Star J.J. Hoover (1-0,
2.45 ERA) will get the start for the Mariners.
Harwich and Orleans split the regular
season series, 3-3, but the Mariners have beaten the Red Birds in the
two previous meetings, both times by two runs. That means nothing,
according to Englert.
“It’s a whole different
season starting Saturday,” the skipper said. “Orleans has got a really
good team and really good arms. It can go either way. It’s been a
dogfight all year and I don’t think it’ll be any different in the
playoffs.”
Wednesday’s win over Orleans was
certainly hard-fought, but the Mariners managed to pull through thanks
to clutch hitting and a couple of key miscues by the Cards.
A two-out throwing error by Orleans
shortstop Michael Olt put Harwich on top 2-1 in the sixth, and Shaver
Hansen (3-for-4) followed with a two-run single to left. An error by
catcher Hampton Tignor, who couldn’t catch Hansen stealing second,
allowed Chase Leavitt to score easily from third, giving Harwich a 5-1
lead.
Orleans fought back in the eighth with
Angelo Songco’s RBI single and Alex Hassan RBI ground out, but Harwich
closer Steve Kalush killed the Cardinals chances for a comeback with a
perfect ninth.
Kalush sandwiched two fly outs around a
strikeout to secure the win and make a winner out of starter Chris Manno
(3-0, 1.93 ERA), who kept the Cardinals off-balance with seven solid
innings of one-run ball.
“I just tried to do what I’ve been
doing all season, pound the strike zone and use a good off-speed pitch
to keep the damage down,” said Manno. “Great offense and great defense
behind me helped a lot.”
It’s been a season of swings for
Harwich, which lost seven of eight games at one point last week (nearly
blowing their eight-point lead on wildcard contenders Brewster and
Chatham), but has now won three in a row.
“We got a little comfortable coming
down the home stretch, but we got a fire lit under our butts when
everyone started catching up, so we had to turn it up again,” said Manno,
adding that chemistry has been the key to the team’s success.
“I think we’re more of a
team than anybody else. We’ve become friends in a short period of time
and we’ve really molded together, so I like our chances in the
playoffs.”
The feel-good victory not only snapped
Harwich’s prolonged post-season absence, but also capped a terrific
turnaround after the Mariners finished with a 14-28-2 record, dead last
in the East Division last year.
“In my 11 years up here,
I’ve never had a group of guys who want to win more than they do,” said
Englert. “This is the time when guys want to go home, but they’ve stayed
in it, gone out and competed every day. This team has played hard all
year and they deserve to be in the post-season.”
Fight To The Finish
Chatham A’s, Harwich Mariners And
Brewster Whitecaps Bunched Together In Battle For East Division Wildcard
Eric Adler
HARWICH — And the wildcard winner is…to
be announced.
More than 40 games into the 44-game
regular season schedule, the Chatham A’s, Harwich Mariners and Brewster
Whitecaps are still locked in a three-way race for the lone playoff spot
in the East Division.
As of The Chronicle’s
deadline Tuesday night, Harwich (22-20, 44 points) holds a slight lead
on Brewster (18-19-4, 40 points) and Chatham (19-22, 38 points). The
Orleans Cardinals (24-15-2, 50 points) wrapped up the East title with a
5-0 victory over Falmouth Monday, and will host the wildcard winner in
the best-of-three East Division championship series beginning Friday at
7 p.m.
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| Chatham’s Joe Mercurio dives back to
the bag as Harwich first baseman Joe Sanders secures the
throw in the Mariners’ 4-1 win over the A’s Monday. ERIC
ADLER PHOTO |
One thing for sure is that
two-time CCBL champ Yarmouth-Dennis won’t three-peat. The Mariners
eliminated the Red Sox (18-23-1, 37 points) from playoff contention with
a 3-2 extra-inning victory at Red Wilson Field Tuesday, and in doing so,
put themselves in prime position to clinch their first post-season berth
since 1997.
“It’s was a huge, huge
win,” said Shaver Hansen, who singled to leadoff the 10th and
scored the go-ahead run. “It’s good to get a win like this going into
the last couple of games of the season. It gives us a lot of
confidence.”
Y-D opened with the
scoring with Ryan Ortiz’ RBI single in the first, and the Red Sox took a
2-0 lead in the second on Andy Wilkins’ solo homer to right. Harwich
caught a break in the sixth when right fielder DeAngelo Mack dropped a
two-out fly ball, allowing Hansen to come home for the Mariners’ first
run.
Newcomer Alex Hilliard led off the
ninth with a walk, moved over two bases on an error and scored on Andrew
Giobbi’s game-extending sacrifice fly. In the 10th, Hansen singled
through the infield, took second on Brian Kemp’s sacrifice bunt, and
traveled another 90 feet on a passed ball before scoring on Brandon
Belt’s sacrifice fly.
Harwich closer Willie
Kempf gave up a pair of two-out singles in the home half of the inning,
but third baseman D.J. LeMahieu gobbled up a ground ball and stepped on
the bag to cap the crucial, come-from-behind win.
Just as vital was Monday’s
4-1 matinee victory over Chatham at Whitehouse Field. Belt pitched five
effective innings and the two-way talent helped his own cause with a
pair of RBIs.
“Whenever I focus on pitching, I hit a
little bit better, and whenever I focus on hitting, I pitch a little bit
better,” said Belt, who struck out two and allowed only one hit. “I’m
not sure why that is, but that’s the way it usually works out.”
There was also no way to explain how
Belt was able to pitch as long and as well as he did, given the fact
he’s taken the mound only once for the Mariners this season and never
threw more than an inning while pitching out of the bullpen for the
University of Texas this spring.
“The game plan today was
to throw everybody one inning,” Harwich Field Manager Steve Englert
said. “But Brandon mowed guys down in the first, then in the second and
third, so we kept him in. His pitch count was down and it worked out
perfectly for us.”
Making the most of opportunities was a
theme for the Mariners not just in the field but at the plate, as Tommy
Medica singled to start a two-out rally in the third, and two batters
later, scored on Belt’s single to center for the 1-0 Harwich lead.
The Mariners rekindled their two-out
magic in the fifth when Giobbi singled and scored on Belt’s triple. Belt
then came home on Joe Sanders’ ensuing single to center to stake Harwich
with a 4-0 lead.
Kyle Seager got Chatham on the board
with an RBI single in the sixth, but the A’s couldn’t come any closer
against the Mariners’ mighty bullpen. Patrick Johnson fanned three over
the sixth and seventh, and Kempf finished off the game fantastically
with two hitless frames.
“Anytime you can get ahead going into
the last couple of days is going to help you out and this win helped us
out a lot,” said Belt.
It also help to stop the bleeding after
Harwich – once leading the wildcard race by eight points – dropped seven
of eight games during a tough-luck stretch last week.
“We had a pretty good
stranglehold on second place, but that’s the way this league goes,” said
Englert. “It’s very competitive, so it’s just as easy to go on a losing
streak as it is a winning streak.”
The Mariners downward
spiral began just before the All-Star break, when they lost 6-1 to
Hyannis and dropped back-to-back games to Falmouth, 5-4 and 4-2.
Following that, Harwich came out on the short end against Cotuit 6-1 and
Brewster 7-5 before suffering their sixth straight loss, 4-2 to Y-D.
Harwich got back in the win column with
a 4-2 victory over Orleans Saturday, but couldn’t climb out of a 7-1
hole in a 7-5 loss to Brewster the next night.
“I don’t know that we were
in a slump so much as we lost some tough games,” Englert said. “Granted,
Cotuit beat us, but we’ve been in every other game. We just didn’t get
the big hits when we needed them, and the bullpen, which has been very
consistent all year, has given up a run here and there.”
Given their consistently
inconsistent ways, Englert made no promises or predictions that his team
would make the playoffs.
“I’d love to see it, but
Chatham is a tough team and Brewster can swing the bats,” the skipper
said. “It could come down to the last day, so we have no choice but to
take things one game at a time.”
Meanwhile, it’s been
nothing but marathon baseball for Chatham, which is currently in the
midst of playing six games over the final four days of the regular
season. That’s not including the A’s 2-0 loss to Y-D Sunday night in a
game that spanned 13 innings.
Chatham seemed to be
headed in the right direction after the All-Star break, beating Bourne
9-4 and edging Orleans 9-8. But the A’s suffered a set-back beginning
with the extra-inning loss to the Red Sox, followed by a 4-1 loss to
Harwich and 4-2 loss to Cotuit in Monday’s double-header.
Chatham manufactured only
four hits in the loss to the Mariners and didn’t do much more damage in
the nightcap against the Kettleers.
Trailing Cotuit 2-0, the
A’s came back in the sixth thanks to Seager, who doubled in the first
run and scored the second off Joe Mercurio’s single to center. Cotuit
answered in the eighth when Evan Crawford walked, stole second and
scored on a single by Dallas Poulk. The Kettleers added an insurance run
when Poulk came home on a wild pitch.
The A’s brought the tying
run to the plate after Gabe Cohen smacked a two-out single to center,
but Cotuit closer Daniel Wolford stymied any chance of a Chatham
comeback when he struck out Kyle Bellows with a high heater.
Chatham Field Manager John
Schiffner refused to comment after the loss, saying only, “I have
nothing to say.”
It doesn’t take a
sabermetics specialist to understand the reason the A’s are currently on
the outside looking in. Their offense simply isn’t producing, managing a
mere three runs in 31 innings during their three-game losing streak.
“That’s not getting it
done,” said Seager. “But we’re a tired team. We’ve got some guys banged
up, some guys playing out of position, and two games in one day is
pretty tough, especially at this level.”
Chatham rebounded with a
7-4 win over Hyannis on Tuesday, but trails wildcard leader Harwich by
six points with three games to go. The A’s are still alive, but are
hanging on life support.
“We need some luck, to be
honest,” said Seager. “We need some teams to lose some big games. We’re
basically relying on other teams to lose at this point to make the
playoffs. We can do our part and win our games, but right now we need
some help.”
Cape Cod
70s All-Stars Punch Ticket To National Championship
by Eric Adler
HARWICH — The Cape
Cod-based 70’s All-Star traveling softball team recently changed their
sponsor from Cape Cod Five to Back Office Associates (BOA), but that
hasn’t stop the team’s winning ways.
The team posted a 5-2
record and placed second in the Eastern United States Senior Softball
championship in Raleigh, N.C. last week, earning them an automatic bid
to the National and World championships in Phoenix, AZ., in October.
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| The BOA Cape Cod 70s All-Stars.
Courtesy photo |
“We were a little
disappointed we didn’t win it all, but overall, I was very pleased with
the way we played,” said player/manager Dick Sullivan, whose team was
missing four starters and played in nothing cooler than 94-degree heat.
“The heat was
oppressive,” Sullivan said. “You’d take a shower, walk outside and you’d
be soaked again.”
In the opening round of
the double-elimination tournament (last Wednesday), Cape Cod defeated
the Chicago Stars 11-6 and the Virginians 12-1.
Bill Page won both games
on the mound and got a heap of help from offensive star Jim Parmelee,
who went 7-for-7 with four triples on the day. Hank Baldassarri hit his
third home run of the year and Jack Ferrie and Tony Fucci also aided the
hitting attack.
In nearly 100-degree heat
the next day (98 to be exact), Cape Cod defeated previously unbeaten
Delaware 10-7, but lost to the same squad by the same score later in the
day.
Baldassarri and Ferrie
had three hits to lead the charge in the first game against Delaware,
while Page went the distance for the win. In the nightcap, Vince Van
Norman had a grand slam, but Cape Cod couldn’t muster much offensive
other than that.
Cape Cod opened semifinal
play in 101-degree heat with a sound 11-4 victory over the Virginia
Cavaliers, thanks to Parmelee’s two home runs and Van Norman’s three
RBI-effort. But Cape Cod could not defend its Eastern U.S. title,
falling 7-4 to Delaware in the championship.
Parmelee, Van Norman and
Page were named to the all-tournament team.
“We ran into some good
teams who were very competitive,” said Sullivan.” The fact we were
finalists is OK, and we returned home with a nice trophy for our new
sponsor.”
Previous sponsor Cape Cod Five had
supported the team for seven years. BOA, Sullivan said, has committed
through 2009 to sponsor the team.
Cape Cod (22-3) will try to add more
trophies to its collection later this month when they play in the Ocean
State Classic from Aug. 17-20 in Warrick, R.I. The team will get another
tune-up for the national championship when they host the Cape Cod
Classic, which runs from Sept. 5-10 in Harwich.
8/7/08 |
