OSI 10 - SMC Partners 11

GLASTONBURY

For the second game in a row, TeamOSI's first two runners reached base and scored, giving the team a quick 2-0 lead. For the second game in a row, they then let their opponent come back and tie the game in the bottom of the first. And for the second game in a row, they subsequently dug themselves a hole too deep to climb out off.

A hole about six feet deep.

Open Solutions managed just 3 hits over the next four innings, playing the game in what appeared to be slow motion, though considering the depth of the hole they were in, perhaps a better description would be zombie motion. The walking dead. And while TeamOSI was staggering through scoreless inning after scoreless inning, SMC Partners was scoring.

They scored ugly, but they scored. Their weak pop flies dropped in; their weak ground balls found holes; and by the time the sixth inning rolled around, SMC had tacked on 9 more runs to take an 11 to 2 lead. Now it was time for Open Solutions' now-expected late game comeback.

No one knew just how close it would be.

TeamOSI scored 2 in the top of the 6th to close to 11-4, and 6 more in the 7th to pull to within a run at 11 to 10. With two outs and needing only one run to tie, Laura "Southern Hashbrown Casserole" Voight came to the plate with runners on first and third. She had already led off the 7th with a single and scored the first run of the inning. This time she topped the ball in front of the plate. It looked like an easy play for the SMC pitcher, but he was rushing and fumbled the ball. For a moment, it looked as if everyone would be safe.

Unfortunately for Open Solutions, he fumbled the ball back toward home plate, back toward TeamOSI's Linda Carlin (2 hits in the game), who was racing in from third. She was only about four steps from home when the SMC pitcher finally got control of the ball. She was only three steps away when he took a lunging stride toward her. And she was only two steps away when he tagged her on the back for the final out of the game. Two steps.

Having notable games were Amy Baldwin with 3 hits, 2 runs, and 2 RBI; Lee Tiziani with 2 doubles, 2 runs, and 2 RBI; and John Jeffrey who went 4 for 4 with 2 RBI. Mark Starybrat also tripled in 2 runs.

But any one of those hits would gladly have been traded for just two more steps.

Two steps. Or about six feet.