Softball+06-02-2013

=United Church 7, Community Church 3=

The Flaming Chalices fell in the season opener to United Church, 7-3, on a lovely, sunny June afternoon. We had a great turnout, with 15 players, including 3 new team members: Teresa Martin, Doug Adams and son Brendan Adams. Things were looking very auspicious after one inning of play. We retired the first 3 UC batters in order, all on flyouts. In our half of the inning, we scored 3 runs, thanks to singles by OF Nick Bailey and 1B Pete Siragusa, sandwiched around triples by OF Matt Nelson and 3B Will Bara. Those would prove to be our last runs. United Church came back in the top of the 2nd and scored the maximum 5 runs, taking a 5-3 lead. After that 1st inning we could not get many more hits. The only other inning when we had 2 hits was the 4th, when 1B Nils Brubaker and Matt singled with 2 outs, but were left stranded when Will hit a hard line drive towards the gap in left center in which the UC outfielder made a difficult running catch. Meanwhile, we held UC's offense pretty effectively, except for a couple more runs. But without any decent hitting, we were unable to overcome the lead. All of our 8 hits were registered by the top 5 hitters in the batting order. We showed some good defense today. SS Sara McCaw was a steady performer, making 2 putouts and 3 assists. P Jeff Nelson made 2 putouts and 2 assists. In the outfield, Matt, Nick and Mark Smith made difficult catches. One notable play occurred with runners on 1st and 2nd, when Matt ranged to his left for a line drive and got a glove on it, but could not hold on. The ball squirted out to the ground, where Nick was there to pick it up, and alertly threw to Pete at 3rd to force out the runner, who had to hold to see if the ball would be caught. Nick also suffered a minor injury, when he charged in on a line drive and the ball ticked off his glove and into his forehead. Cold compress was applied, and Nick sat out a couple innings, but then returned to the game.