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The Warriors faced the Tinley Park Bulldogs in a rematch of the morning's game for the tournament championship. Tinley Park won the coin toss and elected to be the home team this time. But, the Warriors took advantage of batting first by scoring six times in the first inning to put the Bulldogs in a deep hole.
Tinley Park's starting pitcher set the table for the Warriors by hitting Steve Sismelich with a pitch (Steve's sixth HBP of the year--tied with Matt LeVigne for the lead in this unfortunate category), then walking the next two hitters. Tyler Dempsey then hit a fly ball to centerfield, which was dropped, to score Jason Enguita for the first run of the ballgame. The next three batters all reached base--a double by Cody Rutledge and singles by Matt Olinksi and Connor Bartle. Trent Sichelski lined a single into leftfield to score the sixth run of the inning. The Warriors hit Tinley Park's starting pitcher hard--and ran his pitch count up to the point that he had to be removed from the game early into the third inning.
Tyler Dempsey was effective as the Warriors' starting pitcher. Tyler allowed just one unearned run in four innings of work. The home plate umpire squeezed the strike zone considerably in the third inning, but Tyler struck out the Bulldogs' clean-up hitter to end the inning with the bases loaded.
In the fourth inning, the Bulldogs first two batters reached base. But, the Warriors then turned an unusual double play. The catcher, Jason Enguita, threw down to first base to retire the batter on a dropped third strike. Then, Connor Bartle fired back to Jason to retire the runner attempting to score from third base on the play. Tinley Park rarely tested Jason after watching him make a few throws to second base during warm-ups between innings.
Warriors' catcher, Jason Enguita
The Warriors failed to score in the second inning despite Rick Sisco's single to rightfield to start the inning. But, the Warriors scored two runs in the third inning after Matt Olinski grounded out to the shortstop to score Cody Rutledge--who singled to centerfield earlier in the inning. Cody had three hits in this championship game.
The Warriors put another two runs on the board in the fourth inning when Trent Sichelski and Patrick O'Connor started the inning with base hits. Steve Sismelich put the ball in play with a ground out to shortstop to score Patrick. The Warriors led 10-2 at this point.
The Warriors scored four more runs in the fifth inning to take a 12 run lead. Tyler Dempsey homered once again--his third of the day and seventh of the season. This was an unusual play in that Tyler was obstructed by the first baseman. The umpire properly ruled that he would have scored had the obstruction not happened, so Tyler was credited with a homerun rather than a triple on the hit. Tyler now holds the all-time Warriors' record for homers in a season--topping Grant Lewis' five homers in 2008 (Grant currently plays for Sandburg High School). Tyler's 55 runs batted in (RBI) total for the season is another all-time record...and one that may never be broken (except by Tyler adding to his record with approximately 13 games left to play in the season).
Later in the inning, Connor Bartle doubled to leftfield but was later called out for interference on a ground ball to the shortstop off the bat of Matt LeVigne. Once again, the umpires got this one right as Connor definitely hindered the fielder's ability to play the batted baseball. But, the Warriors continued to hit the ball consistently and to hit the ball hard. Trent Sichelski singled for the third time in the game and Rick Sisco singled to reach base in all three of his plate appearances as the Warriors ended up scoring four times in the inning.
The Warriors held a 12 run lead as the game moved into the bottom of the fifth inning. Cody Rutledge made fast work of the fifth inning, retiring three Bulldogs' batters--and striking out the last two hitters of the game. The game was called after five innings due to the mercy rule...the fourth consecutive mercy rule win for the Warriors in the Lombard tournament.
