Delicious, Hooper's Down Five-O's

The Five-O's couldn't keep their momentum going from last week, and were downed by Howard's Hoopers 9-8 on the strength of a "Delicious" walkoff two-run single, Saturday afternoon at the McKownville Park.

For the first time this season, the Five-O's jumped out to an early lead and held on to it until the bottom of the fourth inning. In what can only be called an annoyance, the Hooper's basically stood in the batters box with their bats on their shoulders and drew walks which put themselves in position for a big inning, and left the fourth with a 7-5 lead over the heavily favored Five-O's.

The Five-O's would claw their way back into the game, but would come up short. "It is just frustrating" Five-O's managing partner John Ginder said, "It wouldn't have surprised me if they didn't swing at anything" he added about the aforementioned annoyance. Ginder's hitting woes continued until the fifth inning when he broke an 0-8 slump with a blistering infield single. "I knew I was fast, but I didn't think I was that fast. Maybe it was our new form-fitting uniforms" Ginder said about his infield single. When asked what the cause of his brief slump was Ginder offered "In all honesty, it was my Grand Slam. That was the worst thing to ever happen to me".

As for the rest of the game, The Five-O's had a very solid defensive effort from everyone. Thats right everyone. I don't have to beat the dead horse about outfield blunders this week. Maybe the worst is behind him. Or maybe it was because nothing was hit to him (I am sure you all know who "him" is). But this team has learned how to play the field very well over the last couple of contests. I don't think it is a coincidence that J-I-M-M-Y is out in rightfield. But he seems to be the true backbone of the Five-O's outfield.

Jenna Govel was on the hill again and for the most part shut the Hooper's down. It all came down to one bad inning. Govel looked a little winded near the end of the game but that is to be expected when you throw over 100 pitches in a softball game.

Although he was not thrilled with having to bat ninth, Tylor Stevens didn't allow it to bother him at the plate. Stevens raised his team leading batting average to .813 with a double and an "inside the park homerun" which made the scorers argue because it was actually a single with several errors but after much deliberating, Stevens was credited with a homerun.

Roger Ginder returned to the lineup today and continued where he left off and showed everyone that for an old man he still has some wheels, when he scored from first on a double by Kyle Haines. Haines is continuing to tear the cover off the ball which he reminds me of every time I see him. Haines reached base all four times he was up today. The one thing that was missing from his game was his direction while in the field. The Five-O's looked a bit lost in the early going while on defense because Haines never yelled out where the play was supposed to go. Haines wasn't available for comment but that might actually be becuase I didn't really feel like asking him any questions.

It is confusing for this writer as to why this team can't get it all together at one time. The team can hit. The team can field. They have one of the more dominant pitchers in the league, but still fall short. "There will be more changes in the lineup for our next game" John Ginder said, "We will be without our lead off man and our bottom of the order guy for the next two games, but we'll manage" he concluded.

As always there has to be a CapitalRegionSports.com player of the game. I guess there doesn't have to be but in order for everyone not to think that this player of the game was started because John Ginder hit a grand slam in the first game, I have to keep it going. It was an obvious choice this game, mainly because of his lobbying every time he reached base, but Jon Boyt is the player of the game. He almost bounced himself out of the running with an errant throw in the sixth inning but was able to stay in my good graces.

The Five-O's are back in action this Thursday night at Strawberry Park. It will be interesting to see if they can start climbing the standings and put a couple of good games together in a row.