CLICK HERE for team and player statistics through Game #29.The Warriors were slaughtered by Western Springs in the opening game of the Palos Rumble tournament on Thursday night.
Western Springs scored first after its lead off hitter drew a base on balls and scored from third base on a ground out to shortstop. Western Springs scored two more runs in the top of the third inning on a two out single to leftfield.
The Warriors failed to score in the first three innings. The Warriors left two runners in scoring position in the first inning. Jack Lebert doubled down the rightfield line in the second inning and was left stranded. Ryan Knightly started the third inning with a base hit to rightfield and was also left on base.
Western Springs extended its lead to 5-0 in the top of the fourth inning on back to back homers. Tim Prendergast then entered the game in relief for the Warriors and completed the fourth inning without allowing any more runs.
The Warriors battled back with four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning on five hits. Paco Lauciello started the inning with a double to deep centerfield and later scored. Sam Marc and Tim Prendergast both reached base on infield hits before Ryan Novak lined a single into leftfield to score another run. The Warriors trailed by just one run as the game entered the fifth inning of play.
The Warriors allowed more runs in the fifth inning of this game than in any other inning in the team's four year history. Western Springs sent 19 hitters to the plate before this inning finally ended. The Warriors allowed 15 runs on just 5 hits. There were two costly errors and 7 walks as well as another 2 homers. The final hit of the inning was a grand slam. Paco Lauciello finally ended the misery by entering the game in relief to strikeout the only hitter he faced to end the longest inning in Warriors' history.
The Warriors scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning when Paco Lauciello hammered a homerun over the rightfield wall. Paco had a single, double and homerun in this game.
This game was very unusual for this Warriors team. Typically, our pitching staff yields very few walks---and the staff allowed nine walks in five innings in this game. There were costly fielding errors, some bad baserunning decisions--and Western Springs pounded four homeruns off a Warriors' pitching staff which has been very effective in retiring hitters for most of the season.
About the only good things that we can write about this game are:
- Nobody was injured.
- And, it only counted as one loss!
