Courtesy of the Niagara Gazette
By Doug Smith
LIVERPOOL – The Niagara Power’s pitching nucleus melted down in a catastrophic fourth inning Friday and the radioactively-hot Syracuse Junior Chiefs emerged from the fallout with a 12-9 victory in the opening game of the New York Collegiate Baseball League playoffs.
The Chiefs and Power meet Saturday at 7 in Sal Maglie Stadium in game two of the best-of-three.
Leading 8-2 after 1 ½ innings, with the league’s ERA leader on the mound, Power boosters who dominated the crowd at spartan Hopkins Park had that warm and fuzzy feeling, but it was one of impending disaster.
Having blown away NYCBL won-lost leader Alex Basso in two innings, with Steve Beckham on Hopkins’ oddly-sloped mound, the Power took an 8-4 lead into the fourth. After Brian Witkowski led off with a double, the Power shortstop threw one away. It was a factor – three Chief runs were unearned – but the home team swung some frightful rods, two doubles, a triple, and finally a homer by Witkowski, up for the second time, six total bases in the inning.
Zack Lauricella, who calls Clarence home, had homered in the first and finished with eight total bases and five RBI.
Seth Eller, Master of Middle Relief, cooled the conflagration, a hit here, a walk there, but no more runs. In fact, after the league leaders left the field – no showers at Hopkins Road Park, you can be sure, it hasn’t even a drinking fountain – the reliefers played a 1-0 game.
The Power’s six-run second was classic Boltball. Spencer Bowles and Jaman Hammel singled. Ryan Kiesel bunted safely. Shakeel Newton hit a two-strike pitch for two RBI. Hobbled Chane Lynch sacrificed. Tyler Schweigert doubled for two. Adam Taylor took one for the team. Two were out after Nick Linne forced a runner at home.
Then Neil DeCook hit a grounder back of first and when the Chief infielder cruised toward the bag, DeCook accelerated and belly-flopped into the bag first, getting both RBI (Taylor, from third, seventh Power to score this year on an infield hit) and an Olympic medal, bronze, the color of his uniform. DeCook trotted toward second, provoking a rundown on which Linne to stole home.
It was 8-2.
Not nearly enough.
Several outstanding Chief defensive plays helped hang seven zeroes on the Power, and a couple of pickoffs didn’t help, either. Schweigert tripled in the fifth and Taylor took what the defense gave him to ground him home, and Chief Jason “Nutmeg” Taylor finally closed out the Bolts for a four-out save. The potential tying run never got out of the on-deck circle.
POWER POINTS – Netcaster Jason Patterson hooked up a generator so big it could have pumped out the Pentagon basement in order to get the game on-air… Absent: Introductions, National Anthem and, usually, the minimal scoreboard… Officials of both teams agreed that this was no way to treat a championship series and at game’s end were casting about for a third-game site, if necessary.
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