Tough Sweep for Warriors...16-0

The Resurrection Life Warriors continued their march to a perfect regular season by taking a double-header sweep last week. The Warriors held on in a slugfest against Pax Chrisit, 21-19, before ten-run ruling St. Andrew Blue, 18-8 in game two.

Game one was a barn-burner that came down to the final inning. Rez controlled the game early but as tempers and intensity heated up, the score tightened as Pax made a furious rally in the bottom of the fourth before eventually falling.

Jason Merritt had an outstanding game out of the two-hole, going 5-5 with four runs, seven rbi a double and a homerun en route to his first Player of the Game this year. Chris Burr added four hits while Jamy Antoine, Austin Colby, and Jeff Tenney all had three. Eric Johnson and Adam Hey had two each and Jeff Johnson, Jonathan Engbrecht, and Andy Briggs had one.

Things looked solid for the Warriors right off the bat as the team stormed out to a 10-run first inning. Jamy doubled and scored on Jason's single. Austin singled to move Jason along and after the first out, Tenney blasted a three-run shot to make it 4-0. Burr singled and moved to second on Jeff's walk. After the second out, Andy roped an rbi-single and Adam followed suit. Jamy doubled to score Andy and Jason added two more with a double. Austin knocked out the third straight double to score Jason and cap the inning's scoring.

Pax put two runs up in the bottom of the first on back-t0-back solo homers. Rez got those two back on Jeff's two-run moon-shot to left-center, making it 12-2 going into the bottom of the second.

Pax had another solid inning, putting four runs across home to make it 12-6 after two. Pax continued to show it has a solid lineup, by five hits and taking advantage of one Rez error.

In the top of the third, the Warriors extended their lead back to ten. Jason launched a two-run homer after Jamy reached base on an error to start the inning. With one out, Eric singled and jogged home on Tenney's second homerun of the game, this one a two-run blast.

The Rez defense held solid in the bottom half, stranding two Pax runners. Up 16-6 heading into the fourth, Rez looked to put things away. After a lead-off out, Jamy tripled and came home on Jason's fourth hit of the game. Austin followed with a triple to score Jason and Eric and Tenney hit back-t0-back doubles to add two more runs. Burr singled to make it first and third with one out, but a lineout and a popout ended the inning with no more runs scoring.

Pax turned it on and Warrior defense felt the pressure for the first time all season in the bottom of the fourth. As the chatter had increased throughout the game, with the Pax bench allegeding extra homerun usage and slowing down the game by interrupting the umpire during the innings, the sense of urgency to hurry up and play had settled in. Rez didn't handle it well as Pax got hot in the bottom of the fourth and played a very timid defense as Pax piled on 13 runs to make it 20-19 going into the fifth and final frame.

The first two Pax hitters singled and one scored with the other one ending at third after the first of three outfield errors in the inning. After a lineout, three straight singles and another error pushed two more runs across with a guy on first. A flyout provided the second out, but Pax then rattled off five straight singles to make it 20-13 before a grand slam closed the gap to 20-17. The third error of the game allowed the next runner to reach and a double plated him to make it 20-18. A walk and a single pushed the final run across before a grounder ended the inning.

Shell-shocked and in need of some insurance runs, Rez strode to the plate in the fifth. Andy drew a walk and moved to second on Adam's single. Jamy popped up for the first out but Jason came through with an rbi-single to add that insurance run. However, base-running blunder at second caused the second out. Austin just missed his second consecutive triple but a nice running catch by the right-fielder ended the inning for Rez.

Up just 21-19, the Warrior defense needed to step up in a big way to shut the door. And it did. The first Pax hitter rolled a single through the infield before a hot-shot to Andy at short was handled smoothly and flipped to Eric at second for one and fired to Jeff at first for a beautiful double-play and a pressure-releaser. With two outs and no one on, all the pressure was on Pax. The final batter hit a harmless pop-up to Tenney to end the game. Toughest win of the season for the Warriors.

Game two was a much easier game score-wise but the Warriors had to listen to another earful from the opposing team.

The two-hole proved to be the place to be last week as Andy Briggs captured Player of the Game honors hitting there with four hits, two runs and five rbi, including a two-run homer. Andy also continued his solid play at short with an assist and four putouts.

Tenney finished his awesome double-header wtih three more hits and another homer. Jason had three hits to give him eight on the day. Jamy, Austin, Eric, Jeff and Adam had two hits each with Eric and Jeff hitting the final two Rez homers. Burr and Jonathan had one hit each.

Rez fired up three runs in the top of the first as Jamy singled and scored on Andy's homerun. Austin and Burr singled wand then after two outs, Jason delivered an rbi-single.

St. Andrew Blue took the lead briefly in the bottom half, scoring four runs as an error and two singles loaded the bases with no outs, before a grandslam cleared them in a hurry. Blue missed a chance at more, stranding two runners.

Rez reclaimed the lead with two runs in the second. Jeff and Adam reached to start the inning and after an out, Andy hit a single that was thrown around the diamond for a while allowing two runs to score.

Blue went down without scoring in the second, going down in order. Rez opened it up in the top of the third wtih nine runs and two homeruns. Tenney doubled off the wall to start things and Eric beat out an infield single to put two on. Jason added a single to load the bases for Jonathan who lined out to left, but plated Tenney. Jeff then hit a bomb of a three-run homer to left to make it 9-4 Warriors. Adam singled to get things going again and Jamy, Andy and Austin all singled to score two more runs. After the second out, Tenney capped the inning's scoring with a majestic three-run blast to make it 14-4 Rez.

Blue spent some time disputing the nine runs in the bottom half before finally taking its turn batting. Blue didn't manage any runs, leaving a couple runners on base.

Rez padded the lead with tow more runs in the fourth, using four singles by Jason, Jonathan, Adam and Andy. Blue made a valiant run at a rally in the bottom part of the inning, scoring four runs on three hits adn two walks, but a nice play on a liner by Tenney and a nice field and toss from Austin to Andy up the middle ended the inning.

For good measure, Rez used its fourth homerun in the final inning, a two-run blast by Eric to plate Tenney who had singled. Blue had two baserunners but didn't score in the bottom half and Rez came away the 18-8 victors.

Now 16-0, Rez plays the second place Wooddale team this week at 5:50 on field 4. Wooddale, like last week's teams, will be looking to knock off the unbeaten Warriors who now have won 22 straight league games.

The team has something else to shoot for, along with the perfect season, a .600 team average. Right now, the team is hitting .592. At its current pace, the team will need to average 25 hits in the following two games to hit .600 as a squad. For reference, last week the team banged out 25 hits in game one and 22 in game two. I think it can and will be done.