Week 11 Diamond Dust

RMSA DIAMOND DUST, Week 11 (July 11 – July 18, 2010)

By Mike Kohli, RMSA Board Member

[RMSA Diamond Dust is a weekly synopsis of action in the Rome Men’s Softball Association. It will spotlight feature games and stand-out players from each week’s games]

The RMSA season entered the final stages of the 2010 season this week with week nine and ten games filling the schedule. The top tier teams continued their winning ways, while those battling for the automatic tournament bids continued knocking each other around.

Sunday’s Community League nightcap featured the Dreamers and Taylor Construction. With a 4-4 record, this was a must-win game for Taylor to remain alive in the playoff hunt. The Dreamers meanwhile, had dreams of an upset.

Taylor got the scoring started in the second as Will Roberts drove in Rich Tennant with a sharp single. The Dreamers responded in the bottom of the inning. Randy Pezzula singled in Dave Rienzo III to get the Dreamers on the board.

Taylor went on to score eleven runs to take a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Dreams of an upset were not to be as Taylor won 14-11 to run their record to 5-4 with three games remaining.

Dreamers’ Kevin Blanchard hit for the cycle in the loss, contributing four RBI along the way and JR Mittower and Rienzo each had three hits.

Taylor Construction was led by Vinny Waterman, who hit a back-breaking grand slam in the fourth inning to give Taylor the lead for good. Waterman finished a perfect four for four. Josh Hedrington also had four hits in the win, while Mike Ragonese contributed two home runs.

In Monday action, defending RMSA Tournament Champion Garage/The Mill decimated Black River Ale House/D&D Carpets, 14-2 to remain in second place in the Burt Smith League standings. It was the third league loss for Black River, leaving them, for the moment, just out of reach of that fourth automatic bid.

The game between Bostwick Liquors and Bill Herrig Auto was a tale of two games. Bostwick’s jumped out to a commanding 10-0 lead through the first three and a half innings but failed to score the rest of the way. Herrig’s came back to score 14 runs in the final three innings to win 14-10 and pull into a tie for 6th place with Bostwick.

Mickey Armstrong and Pete LaPointe each had four hits for Herrig’s in the win and Scott Herrig had three hits, including a double and an RBI.

Bostwick’s Steve White, Matt Samuels, Matt Rafte and Kyle Corteaux all had three hits in the heartbreaking loss.

In Korpela League action on Thursday, Palisades ran their record to 9-0, dismantling Midnight Mikey’s/Federated Insurance 15-0. The loss was the third of the season for Mikey’s.

Mattacola Law Firm came back from a 5-1 deficit against Hideaway Pub/Boys From Italy to win a squeaker 6-5 and remain in sole possession of second place.

Firemen and Dilligaf played what would be the most entertaining game of the night. With the Firemen battling for the final automatic bid from the Korpela League, they brought out veteran Mike Schmandt to pitch.

Dilligaf lit up the scoreboard in the first, plating six runners but would go cold after that. Firemen diligently put together a solid rest of the game, backed by good defense and won 13-9 to keep pace with the league leaders.

Dilligaf was led by Jon Tebo, Rich Herrig, Sean Dunn and Lee Littel, who had three hits apiece. Donny Evans was five for five for the Firemen with a home run. Scott Burch and Chandler Wilcox added three hits, one of Wilcox’ was a home run. The Firemen will face a tough match next week as they play Mattacola’s in the opener on field one next week.