8-5, 4th Place

The Rez Life Warriors head into tonight's contest at 8-5 on the season and in 4th place. St. Andrew Red is in 3rd place with a record of 8-4 and is Rez's opponent this evening. A victory would put the Warriors into 3rd place.

Last week Rez managed a split in its double-header versus Living Word and Pax Christi. Living Word took the first game 17-12 while the Warriors came back and won the nightcap 10-4 over Pax. The offense never really got clicking after a good two-week stretch.

Living Word showed why it is the league's hottest team by jumping out to leads of 12-2, 15-3, and 17-9 before shutting down a last-inning rally and winning by five. In the top of the first inning, Living Word took advantage of two Warrior miscues to score two unearned runs and three runs total. The Warriors failed to answer leaving one runner on in the bottom half without scoring. The offense was a little tentative in that first inning.

Living Word added four more runs in the second using a three-run homer for most of the damage. Three hits before the homer plated one run and the dinger capped the inning's scoring. In the bottom of the second, a leadoff double from AJ Larson was followed by a triple from brother Nick Larson to get the team on the board. After a groundout, an error scored Nick and a single put two runners on with just one out. However, another grounder and then a fine play from the pitcher ended the threat, 7-2 Living Word.

Living Word opened up a bigger lead with five runs in the third, again using one homerun. Six out of seven batters ripped hits en route to the five-run inning. Trailing 12-2, The Warriors put one run on the board on back-to-back doubles from Chris Burr and Austin Colby.

Three more runs from Living Word made it a 15-3 game going into the bottom of the fourth. Consecutive singles started the inning and a three-run homer provided all the scoring. With the offense still shaky, the Warriors put together three singles to score one run and make it 15-4 after four innings. Nick, Lee Valle and Jon Engbrecht hit the singles with Jon's driving home Nick. With two on and one out, Rez had a chance for more but the offense was unable to muster anything else.

A one-out double from Living Word in the top of the fifth was wasted as the defense made a couple nice plays to keep Living Word off the scoreboard for the first time. The offense picked up on the defense's cue and tried to turn it on to force another inning of play as the team stared the 10-run rule in the face. Unfortunately, the first two batters went down quickly and the team needed two more runs to force another inning. Austin and Brendan Finn made sure they got that inning with homers on consecutive swings to make it 15-6 with two outs. The offense kept going as AJ ripped a liner and moved to third on Nick's third hit. Jordan Schumack then doubled to score both Larsons and make it 15-8 and there was life showing in the dugout. Lee followed with a single to score Jordan and give the team a solid five-run inning.

Living Word came back and got two more runs in the top of the sixth to make it 17-9 and the offense fell asleep again with no runs in the bottom half. However, the defense held well one more time keeping the Living Word bats at bay, ending the inning with a nifty 1-4-3 double-play.

In the bottom of the inning, Rez needed the bats to get hot again and it looked promising early on as Austin knocked out a double to start things and scooted to third on Finn's liner single. AJ singled to plate Austin and make it 17-10 with two on and no outs. Nick hit a chopper up the middle which looked like his fourth hit of the game but a bad bounce richoceted the ball to the shortstop who just got it to second in time to force out AJ. Finn scored on the play to make it 17-11. After the second out, Lee doubled to make it second and third and kept the rally alive. A single by Jon (hits third hit of the game) scored Nick but a popout ended the rally and the game, 17-12.

Nick Larson earns Player of the Game with four putouts in left field and a 3-4 day at the plate that included four runs scored, two RBI and a triple.

The disappointment from the tough first game loss hung around the Warriors for five innings in game two and the bats were dead for much of the game. The team found itself trailing 4-3 going into the sixth inning before erupting for seven runs to take a 10-4 lead and hang on for victory.

In the top of the first, the team got five straight singles which scored two runs, but a double-play ended the inning without scoring another. Pax's bats were pretty much non-existent the whole game and went down very easily in innings one through three without scoring.

In the top of the second, Rez added one more run as Jordan singled to start, moved to second on an error, and came home on a Jeff Johnson single. After Pax's zero in the bottom half, the Warriors went down quickly in the top of the third leaving Chris on first after a lead-off single.

The defense had one more scoreless inning but the offense matched that with one of its own. In the bottom of the fourth, the Warriors were kind of woken up from their slumber as Pax's first six batters reached base and led to four runs. With the bases loaded and no outs, a sac fly plated the fourth run and the next batter hit into a double-play as Jon speared a liner at second and fired to Chris at first to double off the runner and end the potentially disasterous inning.

The Warriors now trailed 4-3 to a very inferior team and felt their pride tested a bit. Jon and Jeff provided singles with one out in the fifth to put two on for the top of the order but two shots were speared and Rez went down without scoring in the inning for the fifth time on the night. Another inning-ending double-play kept Pax from scoring in the bottom half and the bats shook out the cobwebs for a few minutes and scored seven runs to secure the victory.

Austin started the party with a double and scored on Finn's double. Finn went to third on AJ's single and Nick's double pushed Finn across to give the Warriors the lead, 5-4 with no outs. Jordan singled to score AJ and Lee followed with a single to score Nick and make it 7-4. After a strikeout and a groundout, Jeff blooped one to shallow right that bounced around to score Jordan and put runners at second and third for Jamy Antoine. Jamy delivered a two-run single to make it 10-4 and end the scoring on the night as Austin passed up a glorious opportunity to open up the game by flying out high to left with two runners on to end the inning.

Pax went down quietly in the bottom half as did Rez in the seventh. Pax got two runners on in the seventh but nothing materialized and the game ended on a pop-up to short.

Jordan Schumack and Jeff Johnson shared Player of the Game honors reaching base 6 out of the 7 times up while compiling three runs scored and three RBI between the two of them. Jordan also pitched a much better game on the mound walking only three batters over the seven innings giving the defense a chance to produce.

The 8:50 game tonight on field #4 will likely determine who finishes in third place as the top two teams have much easier schedules the rest of the way. Life still sits atop the standings at 10-2 even though they are just fourth in runs scored.