Date: Wed, May 16/07, 6:00pm
Location: RM - B1
  1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
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7th
R H E
Athletes Corner 10100709--
Cascade Natural Gas 02040107--
Game Notes: It was a very, very strange game. How do often do you see a starting pitcher save a game for his reliever? Or a team seemingly snake bit for 5 innings, come back to win in their last at bat?

Well lit all happened Wednesday May 16 at the Mark Morris field when Athletes Corner took on Cascade Natural Gas.

Austin Wegdahl's 1 out single turned into a double, as the cutoff throw from left field sailed over the shortstop's head. After stealing 3rd, Wegdahl scored on a ground out.

However, in the second and third innings. CNG scored 6 runs (4 unearned) against AC
starter Sean Atkins, who had spun a masterful 2 hit shutout in his previous start against RSG.

The entire AC team was bothered by a gusting, swirling Westerly wind that changed infield popups to Texas Leaguers, and blew balls from Left Center to Right Center. It also negated Atkins' fine knuckleball, which generally floated wide of the strike zone. The low sun made playing RF a nightmare, and every ball hit by a CNG player seemed to be placed perfectly. After 4 frustrating innings, and behind 6-2 (on 4 unearned runs), pitching coach Brian Lovingfoss replaced Atkins with Taylor Beck. Beck was money in the 5th and 6th innings, as he limited the Gassers to a single run.

Meanwhile, everything was still going wrong for the potent AC offense: runners stranded, bad hops going right to the defenders, and strike outs on great 3-2 pitches by Robby Weil, RSG starter.

But in the bottom of 6th, after Nam Le's acrobatic efforts at bat in the bottom of the 5th, things changed for AC, and abruptly so.

Michael Bartel stroked a single, and after 2 failed bunt attempts, Lars Ertolacci popped a single into right field, scoring Bartel, who had stolen second. Scotty Kirkpatrick walked. Austin Wegdahl then blasted a triple, plating Ertolacci and Kirkpatrick, and bringing the score to 7-5 with nobody out. Sean Atkins then hit a sacrifice fly to right, scoring Wegdahl, and it was 7-6 with one down. Next, Branick Herold hit a bloop single to center, moving Beck to 2nd. (Alex Lovingfoss, injured while running out a second inning grounder, had to leave the game.) Eli
Lovingfoss smacked a single, and Beck scored on a wild pitch, which moved Herold to 3rd and Lovingfoss to 2nd. Both runners scored on a line single up the middle by Zac McDonald. AC was up 9-7, before Graves struck out two batters to end the rally.

3 outs to go. Dangerous Tyler Weaver was coming up first. Beck, suddenly rejuvenated, wanted to finish the game, but instead, after a conference between coaches and umpires determined that Atkins could be moved from CF to pitcher, that switch was accomplished; Beck went to first, Herold back to 3rd from 1st and McDonald to CF from 3rd. The managerial moves seemed ill advised as Weaver smashed a long single to left center, and the next batter blooped a hit to right field. The 3rd batter fouled two bunt attempts before laying the ball down the third baseline. But Atkins anticipated the bunt and made a spectacular play to nip the runner at 3rd base. Lady luck was again with the AC team, as Kirkpatrick at short speared a bad hop grounder that leapt about 10 feet off the ground in short left field; he snow coned it and gunned the runner out as Herold used his 1st base stretch to grab the throw at 3rd. Then Atkins induced the last batter to hit a popup, which Herold caught up against the fence to end it.