Apr 17, 2009 - Week One Article
Opening Night
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The Over Hill Gang softball league began its 2009 season on one of the most beautiful Opening Nights anyone can remember. Everyone is glad to be back and looking forward to a great season.

7:00pm - Lockie & Nowachek versus Granny O'Shea's - 60ft field

In the opening game, Granny O’Shea’s and the new Lockie & Nowachek Family Chiropractors played scoreless ball until the 4th inning when L&N knocked across the first run of the year. O’Shea’s came away with two of their own in the bottom of the fourth thanks to RBI singles by Brian Mulcahy and Gary Innes. L&N stretched out their run scoring over the next few innings to 14 runs to take a commanding lead. Even a bases clearing triple by Granny’s Billy Gonzalez couldn’t help O’Shea’s get back on track as L&N won the game 18-6.

Granny O’Shea’s would like to wish Lenny Balestrieri, Jay Donovan, Bruce Kubart and Bob Meyers well as they recuperate on the DL this year. Thanks for visiting in the dugout with the team. Good luck to our new O’Shea’s rookies: Dan Crawford, Mike Dreher and Billy Gonzalez. Have a great year and enjoy the league.

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The first game of the season for the new L&N, formerly Hampton Air started slow. The first 3 innings went scoreless with some great pitching from Ron Schwabe and some good defense. Granny O’Sheas got on the board first with 2 runs in the 4th. L&N answered with one in the bottom of the inning. After that it was hard to stop L&N. With table setters Chris Theo and Tom DeSantis getting on base Butch Flecker got into his groove pounding out 2 hits and 4 RBI’s. Also, back from the IR with 2 doubles and 3 RBI’s was the famous Joe Auer. Welcome back!!

What broke the game open was a shot in the 7th by Jerry Sutherland after intentionally walking the batter before him he smacked a ball well over the left fielder head for a 3 run homer. That pretty much sealed the first win of the year for our new sponsor L&N 18-6

7:00pm - LaCorte Family Auto versus Changing Times - 90ft field

Changing Times opened with an impressive 27-10 win over LaCorte’s Family Auto. The rookies came through for C.T. with both guys having 5 for 5 nights. David Thorburn hit for the cycle and John Najdek had 3 triples and 2 singles. John Hughes also was 5 for 5 and Jerry Iavarone went 3 for 3 with a home run. Charlie Ginley drove in 5 runs, including a three run homer. It was an all around team effort and everybody got into the hitting act.

8:20pm - McCourt & Trudden versus Barco - 90ft field

Barco Construction started on a positive note with a terrific opening night game and hard fought, 14-7 win over McCourt and Trudden. Although their bats were cool most of the game, the Barco defense was solid and at times sterling which kept the score close till their bats came to life. Dennis Ryan started with a superb running grab of a liner in the 1st which set the tone for Barco’s defense but it was Dave Saur who was the defensive star off the game. Dave had an outstanding game in R/C as he made numerous sparkling plays, tracking down what seemed like every hard hit ball M&T smacked. Not to be outdone was the play of middle infielders Russ Graham and Steve Jacobson who turned four DPs, which helped to keep M&T from mounting any sustained attack. Barco did jump out to a one run lead in the 1st on Kevin Moloney’s 2 out hit and added a second run in the 4th on Dave Ringer’s clutch hit but they trailed by one before scoring four runs in the 7th and eight more in the 8th to open up a 14-3 lead before M&T responded with four in the 9th. Offensively Barco had contributions from the entire line-up as nine players had RBIs, of which eight times they were delivered with clutch 2-out hits. Bob Diamond was a perfect 3-3, along with Dave Ringer (3 hits, 3 RBIs), Steve Jacobson (3-4) and Gary Jambor (3 hits, 3 runs, 2 RBIs) to lead the Barco bats. The Barco Boys of Summer wish to extend a warm welcome to rookies Russ Graham and Jim Werlmann and Dave Ringer who is returning from a year on the IR.

FYI to our OTHG league members:

A new batter’s box has been installed on the 60 foot field for both right and left handed batters. The box should help eliminate those problem trenches as everyone digs in to get a base hit. Let us know your feedback. If all goes well, the OTHG league will work with TOB to install the same setup on the 90-foot field.