Crushers, Lady Braves fighting to meet Quails in Softball championships

The Crushers and Lady Braves will fight tonight to decide who will meet the Quails in the BVI Amateur Softball Association Championship series which starts Sunday.

The Crushers evened the best of three series after beating defending champs Lady Braves 22-17 in extra innings. “It’s going to be a dog fight,” Crushers Catcher Gertrude Thomas said of tonight’s game. “We’re going to take everything to them. We want to go to the championships. We’re hungry.”

The drama leading up to tonight’s showdown began unfolding after the defending champs overcame the Crushers 9-2 lead with an eight run fifth inning after scoring five in the fourth to take a 15-13 lead. Thomas blocked the winning run from scoring in the bottom of the seventh, forcing the game into an eight inning tie breaker at 16-16 after being tied at 15-15.

The Crushers completed a double play to end the game in the eight after sending 10 batters to the plate, scoring six for a 22-17 victory. “It was a great comeback, we didn’t give up at all,” Thomas said. “From the beginning, I told the girls ‘Let’s ride this team. We got to go all the way, one game at a time.’”

The outcome disappointed Lady Braves’ manager Julian Adams. “We weren’t in the game mentally. We had the game winning run on third base but, whatever happened mentally knocked us out of the game” he explained. “We had no call losing the game. It was our fault. We played ourselves out of the game.”

But Adams promised his team will be ready tonight, and work to defend their title against league champs Quails who eliminated the Panthers with an 18-5 victory.

“We are still the defending champs,” Adams reminded, noting that Sunday’s game was the one to send his squad back to the championships. “We put our backs against the wall. Now we have to fight.”

The men’s series produced similar drama. Astros pitcher Allen ‘Woodrow’ Smith relieved Brian ‘Power’ Scatliffe in the third then struck out 13 Blue Wings batsmen. His defense however, failed. They committed costly sixth inning errors allowing the Blue Wings to tie the game at 8-8 to force extra innings. The Astros took a 9-8 in the top of the eight before the Blue Wings scored two in the bottom of the inning to win the game 10-9 and tied the series at 1-1.

In the other series, Blue Chips’ ace Neville ‘Sheep’ Smith beat the Byrds twice to take a 2-1 series lead. Smith fanned 13 Friday when the Blue Chips beat the Byrds 3-1, then struck out 11 Sunday in a 5-3 victory.