Watervliet high school field last night, cold, clammy, wet. But, Dennis Lane had the home plate area and the mound covered nicely, and by the time the first pitch was thrown there was no rain. Our old old friend Jeff Whitehead took the mound for the Peppers and pitched the first three allowing no runs and no hits, walking one and having two other runners reach via an error and a fielders choice. Wayne Nicholsen was the full game pitcher for the arachnids and took a perfect game into the fourth inning that was spoiled by a clean line drive to left by Dave Reed. Dave Plew entered the game to pitch for the peppers in the bottom of the fourth and was greeted with four spider hits and three runs. Top of the 5th saw the peppers score 3 runs to tie the game after Nicholsen struck out the first two hitters. The Arachnids were their own worst enemy committing three costly errors while the peppers got only one hit. The Arachnids came up empty in the bottom of the 5th. With one out Charlie Freer made a diving stop of a super hard grounder by TJ Scorsone down the line at third. Charlie slammed his glove on the third base bag, forcing Jim Edelman out who had broken for third and fired a bullet to first base putting down the spiders. tied 3-3. The arachnids got what proved to be the winning run in the bottom of the sixth as Lee Madsen walked, moved to second on a Ricky Saidenberg bunt, got to third on a passed ball and scored on a Terry McCarthy 43 ground out. Out come the peppers in the top of the seventh. Borrowed player Vinny Koster leading off. Vinny hits a routine grounder to second base that was not played cleanly and there he was on first base. You know Vinny likes to run and he did. Koster stole second as the next batter strikes out . Third batter of the inning grounds back to Nicholsen on the mound as Koster moves on to third. Plew comes up, tying run on third base. Plew hits a slow grounder between the pitcher and first base. No real chance for the second baseman to get it so Terry McCarthy comes off the bag goes way over and Wayne Nicholson on auto pilot hustles over to first to catch the toss from McCarthy beating Plew by a whisker and ends the ball game. It was one of the most alert and aware plays that I have seen in a long long time. It was the hive mentality.Arachnids win the ball game 4 to 3 against a very determined and pretty darn solid peppers team. Not a hitters night as the game saw a total of six singles, four by the spiders and two by the peppers. Nicholsen walked one and struck out 5. Peppers pitchers walked 2 and struck out 4, three by Whitehead. There was a girls track meet up on the football field and when Nicholsen was pitching, we could hear them saying if its hard ball, why is he pitching underhand ?. Voices carry over open spaces. It was funny.
-- Edited by crowbait on Thursday 22nd of May 2025 02:19:09 PM
-- Edited by crowbait on Thursday 22nd of May 2025 02:23:51 PM
-- Edited by crowbait on Friday 23rd of May 2025 12:17:20 PM
