I thought it would be good to recap the happenings of the other night. But before we get to the games, it is good to remember that we were coming off a stretch where we ended the season on a 2-6 run, having not won back to back games since May! So you can say that our 4-0 run through the playoffs, winning the championship with a walk-off 10 run, 5 inning win was not expected by any of us. But, the key may have been having our regular roster. Aside from the very first game of the year, we won EVERY single game where we had all 10 of us present. The playoffs was the first time all of us were together since May 17th, in which we won both games and were sitting at 7-1 and alone at the top of the standings. Getting our full roster back was clearly one of the key factors in our run.
So, back to Tuesday. In the semi's, we faced off against Eurotech. They jumped out to a 3-0 lead after 1, but we tightened it to 4-2 after the second. From there we held them to 0 runs in 4 straight innings, heading into the top of the 7th with a 9-4 lead. We scored most of our runs in the 4th, where we got 4, keyed by Sam's 2 rbi single. But in general, we small balled them to death, having only 1 extra base hit the whole game.... Hofs lead off triple in the 6th. They scored 1 in the 7th and showed signs of a comeback, but our solid D made nearly every play and we shut them down before they could make it too interesting.
Final Score: Dirty Grizzlies 9 - Eurotech 5
After the game, we got to sit and watch Evangelical Fracking battle it out with Eurotech to see who would meet us in the Championship. After an early lead, EFM folded like a cheap lawn chair and lost by 8. I was excited to play Eurotech again as we had proven we could shut down there offense....
The Championship started out the same way as the previous game, with us walking off the field after the top of the first down 3 runs. It could have been much worse though, as they had a major rally cooking with no outs which we were able to shut down without allowing any more runs to score. In the bottom of the first we quickly tied it up when Dan hit a 3 run bomb to left center.
From this point on its a blur.... We shut them down in the top of the second, and then proceeded to have one our greatest innings in Dirty Grizzly history by getting 11 straight hits and on base for 13 straight plate appearances. When the dust had settled we had scored 12 runs, Dan had hit his 2nd straight HR of the game (a Grand Slam of course, He ended up with 8 rbi in a 5 inning game), and we ended up with 13 hits, 2 walks and nearly batted around twice as we left the bases loaded. They switched pitchers 2 or 3 times, I don't even know.... It was amazing, and it felt great to eventually enter the 3rd inning up 15-3 (after I was able to find my missing glove). We gave them 2 back in the 3rd, but after shutting them down in the 4th we got those back in the bottom of the inning, forcing them to score three in the 5th to stay alive. Behind a couple HR's they did get the three they needed, but it ended quickly in the bottom of the inning as the bottom our lineup delivered again, with Brett drawing a lead-off walk and eventually scoring on Eric's game winning liner to the gap.
Final Score: Dirty Grizzlies 18 - Eurotech 8
Obviously, the huge 2nd inning was awesome, but for me, the one of the best parts of the night was seeing our defense consistently make plays. We gave them very few extra outs, and hardly any extra bases. We played the highest scoring team in the league twice, for 12 total innings, and held them scoreless in 6 of them, only giving up a total of 13 runs on the evening. It is so fun shutting people down... especially when they say "Whoosh" out loud when they swing! Awesome job guys!!
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