Brewers go up 2-1 on Tri-City

Brandon Leslie leads Lehigh Twp. to a 12-7 win in the Tri-Co semis.

By Ted Meixell
Of The Morning Call

 

Word was that, leading up to the Tri-County League semifinals, the last team top-seeded Tri-City wanted to face was Lehigh Township.

Before their best-of-five set ends, that may well prove to be prophetic. It did not ring true, however, in the opening game Wednesday night in Scherersville.

Lehigh Township's Brandon Leslie went 5-for-5 on Saturday at Scherersville and drove in five runs.

A great day at the dish, to be sure, but it was only the second most important thing the former Northern Lehigh and Rider University star did.

 Leslie also stared down the Tri-County League regular-season champion Tri-City Fleetwings' lineup of mashers from the mound. And, although he was touched for two first-inning runs and, later, when the game was well in hand, meaningless home runs by Matt Marcks and Tom Williams, he struck out eight and led the Brewers to a 12-7 win.

Lehigh Township (22-15) has a two-games-to-one lead in the best-of-five semifinal set. Game 4 will be at 4:45 p.m. today at Bryfogle Park in Berlinsville.

Prior to the series, the conventional wisdom was that Lehigh Township was the last team the Fleetwings wanted to see in the semis.

On Wednesday, when the Fleetwings (28-7) spanked the Brewers 13-2 in the series opener, that sounded silly. But following 18-3 and 12-7 thumpings at the hands of the same club that ousted them in four games in last year's semis, it hits the bulls-eye.

''We've done well against them before,'' said Leslie. ''We were a little down after the first game; we wanted to put up a better fight than that. But we did the same thing to them in Game 2 that they did to us in the first one — jumped on them early. I'd only pitched against Tri-City once, last year, and the game was a slugfest. I sure wanted to turn that around.''

Leslie admitted he was tiring toward the end Saturday, but acknowledged that getting five hits and running the bases five times had something to do with that.

Tri-City led 2-1 into the fourth inning. But shortstop Jeremy Bartha changed that with one big swing — a two-run homer for a 3-2 lead. Leslie and Joe Bubba (3-for-5) added RBI-singles in the same inning to make it 5-2. Shawn Andrews singled in one and Leslie two in the fifth to make it 8-2.

By the time Williams stroked a three-run homer with two out in the bottom if the seventh, Leslie had a comfy 12-4 cushion.

''Game 1 was definitely a gut check,'' said Andrews, the team's player/manager. ''I'm proud of these guys. They knew they had to play hard after getting hammered, and they have been ever since.''

Mike Trimble went 2-for-4 and scored three times for the winners, and Charlie Torres was 2-for-3 with two runs scored. Matt Godusky had three hits for the Fleetwings, Ben Swatsky two.

Last year, after beating Tri-City in the semis, the Brewers fell to ICC in the finals.

''We were prepared,'' insisted Leslie, who has eight hits and eight RBIs in the Brewers' two wins in the series, ''but we did have something of a letdown. This year, our goal is to go all the way.''


Lehigh Township  010 430 4 — 12 16 2

Tri-City                 200 010 3 —  7  10 1

Brandon Leslie and Shawn Andrews; Mike Palos, Dennis Kinney (5) and Jeremy Arner. WP: Leslie. LP: Palos. HR: LT: Jeremy Bartha (4th, 1 on). TC: Matt Marcks (5th, solo); Tom Williams (7th, 2 on).



ted.meixell@mcall.com

From The Morning Call -- August 10, 2003

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