Warriors Split to Start Second Half

Rez Life split a doubleheader coming out of the All-Star break, beating Wooddale 13-5 but falling to 2nd place Life 6-2. The defense again was excellent, proving its honor of being named the top defense in the league at the midway point.

In game one, the Warriors relied heavily on their 5-man infield's brilliance. The left side of Andy Briggs and Lee Valle combined for seven assists without an error. Lee Valle earned his first player of the game, contributing four assists and a putout at thirdbase in the finest doubleheader I have seen from the hot corner. Lee also drew three walks in four plate appearances.

While the offense scored 13 runs, it never got going and only managed 13 hits. Both pitchers struggled finding the zone as there were 17 combined walks in the game. Five people had two hits, led by Austin Colby who went 2-2 with two runs scored, five RBI, a double and a three-run homerun. Jeff Johnson also had a perfect game at the plate, going 2-2 with two runs, two rbi and a homerun.

In the top of the first, the squad jumped out to a 4-0 lead. Andy Briggs and Jason Merritt started the game with back-to-back singles. Austin then plate Andy with a double off the wall. After the first out, Jordan Schumack singled to score Jason and Austin. Jamy Antoine singled and the bases were loaded on Lee's walk. Jeff lofted a sacrifice fly to score Jordan and closed the inning's scoring.

Wooddale scraped together one run in the bottom half using two walks and a single. Leading 4-1, Rez Life added two more runs in the second. Adam Hey doubled to start things and trotted home on Jason's one-out double. Jason smartly advanced to third on the throw home and jogged home on Austin's sac fly. Eric Johnson singled but was left standing on first as the inning ended.

In the bottom of the second, Wooddale came charging back into the game with three runs to make it 6-4. Five walks and a single led to the big inning. The Warriors were shutout in the top of the third leaving Lee and Jeff on base. Wooddale also went down scoreless making it 6-4 in the top of the fourth.

Rez added one in the fourth as Andy, Austin, and Eric walked to load the bases and Jordan walked to score Andy. A sharply-hit grounder turned into a double play to end the potential big inning.

Wooddale went down one, two, three in the bottom half as Lee had two assists and a putout at third.

Leading just 7-4, Rez looked to expand that lead in the fifth frame. Lee walked to start things and moved to second on Jeff's walk. After back-to-back outs, the two-out offense kicked it into gear. Andy doubled scoring both runners and Jason walked to put two on for Austin. Austin lined a three-run homer to dead center to make it 12-4 and give Rez a nice cushion.

Wooddale didn't score in the fifth and the sixth inning started as the final inning due to time constraints. With two outs and no one on, Jeff launched his second homer of the season to left to give Rez its 13th run.
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In the last half of the sixth, Wooddale put together one run on three hits and a walk to make it 13-5. Eric, Andy, and Jason all added two hits in the game. Jordan had three rbi.

The nightcap was not nearly as fruitful for the Warrior bats, as the team scored just two runs on seven hits in seven innings. Life wasn't much better knocking out just 11 hits in its seven innings, but translating that into six runs and a victory.

Life went down one, two, three to start the game and Rez grabbed a 1-0 lead in the bottom half. Andy singled and moved to third on Jason's double. With runners at second and third for Austin and Eric, the night took an ominous turn for the worse as Austin hit his first infield popout of the season and Eric managed just a groundout to score Andy.

Life stranded a leadoff double in the second and Rez came to bat with a 1-0 lead in the bottom half. However, Rez went down in order for the first of fiv times in the game. The seven hits that the Warriors had were all from the top four hitters in the lineup. During the game Rez made eight consecutive outs at one point and seven at another.

Both teams were scoreless again in the third inning but Life took the lead for good in the top of the fourth. Life started the four-run inning single, double, dinger. The offense added another run later on with three more singles.

Rez still couldn't muster any offense going scoreless in the fourth and fifth and Life padded its lead with two more runs in the top of the sixth. Trailing 6-1, the Warriors did plate one run in the bottom of the sixth. Andy lined his third single of the game to center, moved to second on Austins' second hit and scored on Eric's rbi single.

That was it for the offense as the bats went down in order in the seventh. Andy earned POG with his 3-3 performance including scoring both runs.

The 1-1 night puts Rez's record at 7-5 and in fifth place in the league. Next week the Warriors wll face Immanuel who has won eight games in a row and sits in second place with a record of 9-3.