After losing just once during the regular season, Shade came out on the short end of a 25-15 decision to the Rascals in the ‘A’-final of the adult mixed slo-pitch league Monday night.
After jumping out to an early 2-0 lead in the first inning, the Rascals broke the game open in the fourth.
With a runner on second, Steve Robertson hammered a pitch to deep centrefield. At first, it looked like Shade centrefielder Diana King had the catch–but she dropped it.
Robertson almost ran over fellow base-runner Sherry Lessard on his way to an inside-the-park home run.
Shortly after another run scored on a sacrifice fly by Toby Munro, Brad Brown smacked a three-run homer to stretch the Rascals’ lead to 8-0.
Shade first baseman Debbie Armstrong snagged a line drive down the first base line to finally end the onslaught. But the Rascals kept on coming in the top of the fifth, scoring five more on homers by Shane Bliss and Mike Belluz to make it 13-0.
In the bottom of the fifth, Chris Kellar hit a triple and later scored to erase the goose-egg on the scoresheet. And that seemed to ignite Shade, who erupted for eight runs in the bottom of the seventh–sparked by a bases-loaded triple by King.
But that was as close as Shade would come although the team did rally for five runs in the bottom of the ninth, led by Ron Kellar’s three-run blast, to make the score respectable.
“[The keys were] defence and solid base hitting by the women,” Robertson said of the win.
Meanwhile, the Last Raps built a commanding 13-6 lead over Mixed Nuts by the bottom of the third inning en route to a 28-11 victory in the ‘B’-final.