Softball+06-10-2012

=Chalices Shut Out, 17-0=

Community Church was overpowered by a tough Good Shepherd/Grace Hill team by a score of 17-0 today. The game did not start off so badly, as we batted first and got 3 hits in the top half of the inning, from SS Matt Nelson, LF Spence Foscue and 1B Glenn Mehrbach. Unfortunately, on that last hit by Glenn, our 3rd base coach (yours truly) gave Spence the green light to score from second, only to retract it when I saw the clean pickup and solid throw home by the outfielder. Spence was already nearly half way home when he put on the brakes and tried to get back to 3rd, only to be beaten to the bag by a good relay from the catcher. Little did we know then that those 3 hits in the inning would represent half our game total, and that Spence would be our last baserunner to get as far as 3rd base in the remainder of the game. The bottom half of the inning revealed just how daunting our task would be against a good hitting team. The first 6 players all reached base, 5 on hits and one on an error. GS/GH scored the maximum 5 runs before we had even recorded one out against them. It was more of the same in the 2nd, as they scored 5 more runs, although this time we managed to get 2 outs. Things settled down a bit after that, as we were able to keep them from scoring in the 3rd and 4th innings. Meanwhile, we were not able to get anything going offensively. We had 2 hits in the 4th (Matt and Spence), both after 2 outs, but could not drive in a run. Good Shepherd/Grace Hill scored 5 more in the bottom of the 5th, which could have ended the game officially according to the mercy rule (15 run deficit after 5 innings), but both teams agreed to keep playing. In our remaining 2 innings at-bat, we only got one more base runner, and no runs. We had 6 hits total, 2 each by Matt and Spence, our number 2 and 3 hitters. Defensively, we only made 13 putouts in 6 innings, due to our opponents propensity to score the maximum 5 runs without making any outs. We did not throw out a single runner at first, a testament to how well GS/GH could hit the ball and then run after they hit it. We did record 2 force-outs at 3rd base, which were our only 2 assists of the game. Most of the putouts we recorded came on popups and line drives. The best defensive play of the game was when Matt went deep into the hole to field a sharp ground ball, dove and gloved the ball while rolling over. He came up ready to throw but had no play at any base. The play came with the bases loaded and kept a 2nd run from scoring. Honorable mention goes to C Megan Carlson, who reacted quickly to snare a short foul popup, that preserved a scoreless inning.