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Brewers eliminate Tri-City
Ryan Amey shuts down the Fleetwings as
Lehigh Township wins 4-1 to advance to Finals.
SCHERERSVILLE
-- The Lehigh Township Brewers hope the second time's a charm. The Brew-Crew are
headed back to the Tri-County League Finals following a 4-1 win over the
Tri-City Fleetwings in Game 5 of the Semifinals. This pitching duel between Ryan
Amey and Steve Rothermel was quite a change of pace after the teams combined to
score 67 runs in the first four games, an average of 16.8 runs per game.
Rothermel struck out the side in the first for the Fleetwings, then Mike Palos
took Amey deep for a quick 1-0 lead. The two pitchers swapped zeros in the
second before Rothermel ran into some trouble in the third.
Mike
Trimble blooped Rothermel's first pitch into right. Charlie Torres tried to bunt
him over, Rothermel's throw went out of play, putting runners on second and
third with no outs. Brandon Leslie doubled to give LT a 2-1 lead. After two
outs, Steve "Odd Couple" Unger slapped a single up the middle to plate
Leslie.
Tri-City
continued to struggle at the plate, getting only three hits and five baserunners
overall after the second inning. The top of the order went 2-10, the lone hard
hit being the Palos' homer. With Amey keeping the Fleetwings in check, his 3-1
lead become more imposing as the game went on.
The
Brewers padded their lead with a sixth-inning run. Mark Nicholas led off with a
single, but was thrown out at the plate trying to score on an Omar Torres
double. After Trimble poked an infield single, manager Bob Fatzinger brought in
Ryan Palos to get through the inning. Palos got Charlie Torres to hit into a
fielder's choice for the second out, but Omar came home on the play. Another
ground ball got the Wings out of the inning, but with six outs left and down
4-1, the wind wasn't quite out of their sails.
With one
out, Ben Swatsky got an infield single to deep short and went to second when
Amey's pickoff throw went into the woods. Josh Perich walked to breathe new life
into the Wings, but a flyout and soft grounder killed the rally.
Ryan
Palos ran into a spot of trouble with the Brewers in the seventh. After catching
Joe Bubba looking, he allowed consecutive singles to Eric Schmitt, Unger, and
Jeremy Bartha. With the bases loaded, Dennis Kinney came in to fix the jam, and
coaxed a line-out double play from Nicholas.
Jeremy Arner led off the bottom of the seventh with a walk. Teague Fatzinger
followed, hitting a double play ball to second but beating the relay throw. Matt
Hlay flied out to left for the second out. With the season resting on his at
bat, Matt Marcks shook off three straight strikeouts by grounding to first to
end the game.
For
Lehigh Township, Bartha, Schmitt, Trimble, and Unger had two hits each. Amey
tossed a six-hitter with four K's and two walks.
Arner,
Teague Fatzinger, Ben Swatsky, Matt Hlay, Mike Palos, and Tom Williams each had
a hit for the Fleetwings. Losing pitcher Steve Rothermel had a fine outing,
allowing two earned runs in 5 1/3 innings of work with five strikeouts.
The
Brewers will square off against the Gabelsville Owls in the Finals, with Game 1
set for Thursday at 5:45 in Gabelsville. The Owls were 11-4 winners over
Limeport, winning their series 3-2.
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