Our Zog season finally brought us to one of our favorite fields to play at in Central Park's Great Lawn. The grass was thick and the weather was beautiful. We were fortunate to bump into a catering truck which supplied some much-appreciated libations. After a brief delay waiting for the umpire to appear, the game was set to start. Our opponents were the Hardballers, a cellar-dwelling but scrappy team that was hungry for their first win.
Margaret was our starting pitcher and as always, she pitched very well. She held Hardballers to 3 runs over 7 innings. Our defense gave up a bit, but mostly took away. Our opponents had a very crafty pitcher too though, and his work combined with some decent defense held us to no runs through the first 3 innings. We were down 0-3 entering our turn at-bat in the bottom of the 4th. We knew we were on the verge of turning this thing around.
The top of the order then came up in the 4th and sparked the turnaround. Alan, Cindy, and George got 3 hits in a row, then Iain stepped up and hit a 3-run home run. Just like that we had overturned the 0-3 deficit to a 4-3 lead. After that, we were off to the races. 10 Hounds had a multiple-hit game, including Murph who went 4-4 and had a ton of action at third base. We scored 9 in the 4th and 6 in the 5th to blow the game open. We continued to make the plays we needed to on defense and closed them out with a 1-2-3 7th. Final Score: Hounds 16, Harballers 3.
With this win we have clinched a playoff berth. I won't congratulate anybody because we have bigger things on our mind and making the playoffs was always a foregone conclusion, at least in my mind. We must continue to build on our momentum as we head into the 2nd season. Our final 2 opponents are in the lower half of the standings, but they both have an outside chance of making the playoffs so you know they will be playing hard. Let's be the dream-crushers.
