Brewers topple Pirates, 9-4
Brandon Leslie, John Stezenko and
Steve Unger lead LT over ICC to force a Game 5.
BERLINSVILLE
-- John Stezenko went 3-for-4 with three doubles and a pair of RBI to lead
surging Lehigh Township to a 9-4 win in Game 4 to tie the Finals at two games
apiece, forcing a fifth and deciding game at Bethlehem Township Municipal Park
at 5:45 on Thursday.
Ironically, Stezenko's best hit ball of the day did not even go for a hit.
After
ICC went down 1-2-3 in the first, Stezenko led off the Brewers' half of the
inning by smashing a 1-2 fastball to deep center, maybe 30 feet to the left of
dead center, where A.J. Peracchia made an outstanding catch, reaching over the
fence to snag the big-fly, keeping Lehigh Township off the board.
This
was not a harbinger of good things to come for ICC, however. In fact, it
was the only thing that went right for the Pirates the entire game.
Case-in-point #1 took place in the top of the second. Bryan Martin turned on a
2-0 fastball from emergency starter Brandon Leslie and ripped a base-knock to
right for a one-out hit. Leslie was filling in for the listed starter, Derek
Major, who could not make the Game 4 start due to an unspecified illness. Brent
Bowman was hit by Leslie's next pitch to put two runners on, and then Erik Ruff
smacked a line-drive that seemed destined to score a run, but Jeremy Bartha
snagged it and took three steps to the second-base bag to double up Martin, and
the Brewers were out of trouble.
Case-in-point #2 happened in the top of the third. Kyle Ruff got hit by a pitch
to start the inning. With an 0-1 count, Todd Brosious tried to sacrifice Ruff to
second, but popped it up down the third-base line, where Nick D'Amico was
waiting. But D'Amico saw that Brosious had not moved but a step or two out of
the box, so he deliberately let the ball drop, hoping to turn a crafty
double-play. But the ball had so much spin on it, that it kicked foul after
hitting the dirt about a foot in fair territory.
Brosious
now had new life, even though he had to deal with an 0-2 count, but trouble
seemed to be on the horizon for the Brewers after the risky play by D'Amico.
After the count went to 2-2, Brosious hit a grounder up the middle that Leslie
barely snagged, with a "snow-cone", no less. Leslie then whirled and started a
nifty 1-6-3 double-play that made D'Amico's day, for sure.
Case-in-point #3 was a killer for ICC in the top of the fourth. After Lehigh
Township scored four runs in the third (more on that later), Luke Pile started
the fourth with an opposite-field double, Peracchia walked on four pitches and
Dave Stauffer ripped a single to left to load the bases with nobody out. Martin
stepped up and just missed two pitches, fouling them straight back, while
working a 2-2 count. But Leslie induced Martin to fly out to shallow left, where
Bartha hauled it in for one out. Then Bowman, ahead in the count 2-1, got sawed
off and bounced back to Leslie, who started a 1-2-3 inning-ending double-play to
really take the wind out of the ICC sails for a third straight inning.
Now
to the scoring, since there were in fact, 13 runs tallied in this game.
Scott Stewart was smoking early, shrugging off Stezenko's blast that was caught
at the fence, as he retired eight straight Brewers, three via the strikeout.
Then Nick Bowen hit a chopper up the middle that he legged out for what appeared
to be an innocent two-out hit.
Wrong.
In
what is arguably Case-in-point #4 for ICC, the "innocent" infield hit seemed to
awaken the Brewers' bats as if someone in LT's dugout poured some secret powder
into a bowl of water, microwaved it, and out came some instant offense. Because
Stezenko ripped a laser-beam to right-center off Stewart's first offering that went
for a ground-rule double. Leslie then helped his cause with a drive to deep
right, that short-hopped the fence, just barely out of Pile's reach for a
two-run triple. Bartha reached down on a 1-2 curve to lace a double to
left-center and the score was quickly 3-0 Brewers. Then Steve Unger got just
enough of Stewart's next pitch to bloop a single to center and it was now 4-0.
Eric Schmitt then singled, the sixth consecutive hit of the inning, before
D'Amico ripped a liner to center that was caught by Peracchia to end the inning.
After Leslie worked his magic act to keep ICC off the board, as described in
Case-in-point #3, the Brewers' Pat Higgins led off the bottom half of the fourth
with a single. After a sacrifice and a strikeout, Stezenko smashed a two-out
double off the base of the left-field wall to make the score 5-0.
After
an uneventful fifth inning, ICC finally got to Leslie in the sixth. Luke Pile
followed a Chad Stecker walk with a two-run homer that just barely cleared the
fence in right. The Pirates were down by just three, and still nobody out. After
a flyout and a groundout, Martin hit a rocket that easily cleared the
right-field fence. ICC now trailed just 5-3. But Leslie, who seemed to be tiring
now, got pinch-hitter Josh Mohlmann to fly out to left to end the inning.
Even
though Leslie was tiring, it was obvious that Stewart was, too. He walked his
only two batters of the game in the fifth, but escaped that inning unscathed.
No
such luck in the sixth.
After a flyout, Bowen laced a double just fair down the left-field line.
Stezenko followed with his third double of the contest, just past a diving
Brosious at third. It was now 6-3 Brewers. Leslie then hit a grounder to deep
short that took a bad hop on the sure-handed Stecker and skipped into left for a
base hit. Stezenko scored and it was 7-3. After a pop-up, Steve Unger then
unloaded a mammoth two-run homer to left-center to put an exclamation point on
the game, making the score 9-3, Lehigh Township.
ICC did not go
quietly in the seventh, as Erik Ruff, Brosious and Stecker all singled to load
the bases with one out. But the tired arm of Leslie still had enough to get Pile
to ground into a RBI fielder's choice and Peracchia to fly to left to end the
game.
It
was a great effort from Leslie, the 2003 Most Valuable Player, who did not even
know he was starting this game on the mound until he got to the ballpark.
Leslie, with his arm and stick, has arguably been the best all-around player in
the league since Gabelsville's Shawn Betz moved out of the area after the 2001
season.
After
being down 2-0 in this series, and 3-0 through three innings in Game 3, the
Brewers have come back from the dead to send the Finals to a Game 5.
Only
one other team in league history has come back from a 2-0 deficit to win the
championship. The Gilbertsville Rangers were down 2-0 to the Silver Creek
Raiders in 1993, before winning 4-2, 8-1 and 5-1 in Games 3, 4 and 5,
respectively, to take that series.
Also,
this is the fourth time these two teams have met in the playoffs in the last
five seasons, and the underdog (the team with the lower seed) has won the
previous three series. The Brewers are also trying to snap a two-series winning
streak by the Pirates, who beat the Brewers 3-games-to-1 in the Finals in 2002
and 2-0 in the first-round in 2001.
Lehigh Township's last series win against the Pirates came in 2000, where they
erased a 1-0 deficit to win that first-round series 2-games-to-1.
ICC's
Brett Vroman will take his 10-0 record for the 2004 season (including the
playoffs) to the hill on Thursday and he will most likely face Derek Major, if
he has recovered from his undisclosed illness. If Major is unavailable, then
Sean Heimple will most likely get the nod for the Brewers.
If
history is any indicator in this rivalry, then Game 5 should be a great one. And
do not be surprised if some kind of controversial play is the difference on
Thursday. What would a Brewers/Pirates series be without something controversial
to talk about all winter?
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