South Eugene spoils pennant race

  After driving through the rains to get home from Thurston Friday night, I opened my email to check on scores from the MWL.  The first email title was "South Eugene 9 Marist 1.  No Typo!"  I wasn't overly shocked by a South upset of Marist, I figured Joe Schindler  must have pitched and pitched a beaut of a game. But I was shocked by the score.  The Marist bats are good for a few more runs, and  the Axemen hadn't had any success holding the better teams down, allowing 10.6 runs per game by the top four MWL teams, including giving up 19 to Marist in the first round.
   Indeed, Schindler did pitch a fine game, giving up just two hits, one a bunt single.  Schindler was a little shaky in the first, walking leadoff Logan Silver, and two outs later, falling behind clean-up Jake Britt, 3-1, before Britt singled in Silver.  But from then on, it was almost autopilot, starting with striking out the side in the second.  The third inning was stormy due to two errors, which helped load the bases, but Schindler took care of that with an infield pop up and a strike out of the clean up batter.  Three up, three down in the fourth and fifth. A walk with outs in each of the sixth and 7th and Schindler took the Axemen home with a victory.
  Meanwhile, South broke the game wide open in the fourth, sending 12 batters to the plate and scoring six.  Carlos Larson led off the inning from the 5 slot with a solo shot to left center.  The next four batters got on via two singles, a walk and a hit batter.  A few batters later, Gus Craig tripled in two runs and scored on a passed  ball.  With Schindler dialed in on the mound, Marist was headed towards a loss and second place in the MWL. 

  At the same time, I was at the eastern front of the MWL, where Thurston was hosting Churchill.  I prefer pitching duals with small ball and great batting matches between the best pitchers and the best hitters in the league. So I thought about going to South to see if Schindler would be pitching and facing Silver, Swindlling, Britt and company.  But I looked out the window and chose the shelter of the mancave at Thurston.  I knew the odds of a great pitching dual were slim, but I also knew that a) the Colts are entertaining in a wild and wooly way, and b) the wind would be blowing out 20 knots per hour and the Colt sluggers and Churchill's Bryson Jones might match the five homer game I saw at Thurston last week.
  The game was well recapped last Friday, so I won't rerun the game.  Instead I'll emphasize how the Colts are  living on the edge.  Thurston is on an 7 game win streak:  Going back six games, here are their scores:

• 7-6 over North.  NE runners on 2nd and 3rd when game ended.
• 7-6 over Sheldon. 9 innings
• 10-7 over South. Came back from a 7-3 deficit.
• 10-9 over Marist. Came back from 4 down, scoring 5 in the sixth.
• 4-1 over Willamette
• 8-5 over Churchill. Came back from 0-1 and 4-3 deficits

The Colt players just don't seem to worried about getting behind.  I have to believe coach Dube is going a little crazy, though.

Now all Thurston has to do is beat Springfield (6-8) and Marshfield (0-14) and the worst they can do is tie for first with North Eugene.  North has to face and beat Churchill and Marist at Marist to force a tie with Thurston.

State Playoff Seeding Picture.

So, right now it looks like the 6A order for the Special District seeding games will be Thurston, Sheldon and South Eugene.  Hybrid seeding games are Friday.  6A play-in games are Tuesday.  The MWL 6A #1 finisher will get a bye in the play-in round.  The 6A #2 finisher has to win it's seeding game to get a play-in bye.  South Eugene, our 6A number three team,  will have to play both a seeding game Friday and a play in game next Tuesday.

In the 5A, North and Marist are battling it out for first.  They have a head to head on the Wednesday, the last day of league play.  Marist has to beat Sheldon to stay in the  race for the 5A number one seed. Springfield and Churchill are tied for the number three and four seeds and have a head to head Wednesday. 

The top four teams are still in it for the title. Can't get much better than that.

PS.  Getting back to the "Not a Typo!" email.  There actually was a typo.  The score was 8-1 rather than 9-1.  But I knew what the South fan meant....  We won! And we soundly beat a very good team!