Gabelsville sweeps Limeport

Owls stun Bulls with 3 shutouts in the semis, winning 3-0 in the finale thanks to Zeb Engle.

By Steve Smull

    LIMEPORT -- The Gabelsville Owls scored two runs on wild pitches and another on a sacrifice fly on a rainy night at Limeport Stadium en route to a 3-0 win in Game Three of the best-of-5 semifinals to earn a 3-0 series sweep.

    It certainly is not unusual in any way, shape or form to hear about Gabelsville sweeping a playoff series. They have had countless sweeps of two-game series over the years and this is their seventh three-game sweep (fourth in the semifinals) since the league started having best-of-five series.

    However, what is stunning about this sweep of top-seeded Limeport is the way in which the fourth-seeded Owls ousted the Bulls.

    Limeport finished the season with a team batting average of .331, the highest team batting average since the league switched over to wooden bats in 2006. Everyone who followed the league this summer would agree that the Bulls have a very potent offense. So to say that it is stunning would be quite the understatement when you look at the final tally for the three-game series for the Bulls: 0 runs and 6 hits.

    Those are not the numbers for any one of the three games. Those are the aggregate numbers for the entire series. It is the first time a team has been shutout for an entire three-game series in league history.

    To delve even deeper into the Bulls' offensive frustration, Limeport did not have a runner reach second base in the first two games of the series. They did manage to get a runner to second base in each of the first five innings in Game 3, but failed to get anyone to third base, which means that third-base coach Mike McDaniel was the loneliest guy on the field because he had only Gabelsville players to talk to the entire series (and the word "cheeseburger" came up a few times during their "conversations", among other things).

    Owls' veteran Shawn Betz was one strike away from a no-hitter in Game 1, before league batting champ Ricky Rivera laced a sharp single to left to end that bid. Betz finished with a one-hitter. Then in Game 2, former professional pitcher Jared Trout tossed a no-no with the help of several great defensive plays. Both pitchers walked just one batter in those games.

    So Game 3 starter Zeb Engle had the unenviable task of trying to match what Betz and Trout did in the first two games. And his task would be even tougher as Engle, a junior southpaw at Ursinus, has been under the weather with a chest/coughing issue that was bad enough to have him go for a chest x-ray (which came up negative) during the Owls' first-round series with ICC.

    Although Engle was still hacking a lot on the bench between innings, on the mound, he had a better time of it as he got Limeport to continue to cough up goose-eggs, twirling a five-hit shutout, striking out eight while walking just one.

    "He was getting ahead of hitters all night," said Gabelsville player/manager Matt Danner. "This was big because of the wet conditions tonight. It kept our infielders in the game and they came up big, making a lot of nice plays."

    The Bulls made a lot of nice defensive plays, too, but the difference in the game was the Owls' ability to keep the pressure on, despite managing just two hits.

    Tom DeAngelis walked to lead off the game, stole second, then stole third and scored on a wild pitch and it was quickly 1-0 Owls.

    Ricky Rivera became the first Limeport offensive player to touch second base in the series when he launched a long double to deep right-center with two outs in the bottom of the first. But after plunking Tim Schemel, Engle got a strikeout to end the inning.

    Limeport starter Ryan Gerber took a no-hitter (and five strikeouts) into the fifth, when Gary Hessler broke up the no-no with a drag-bunt single on the soaked infield grass (after it had rained for two straight innings). Trout then walked on five pitches.

    Exit Gerber. Enter Sean Heimpel.

    Heimpel was struggling right from the get-go on the muddy mound. He was banging his spikes against the mound after every pitch and looked extremely uncomfortable as he pitched to catcher Chris Fusco (also from Ursinus) who was trying to sacrifice both runners up 90 feet. Fusco fouled two pitches off, but was still able to draw a walk to load the bases with no outs.

    Exit Heimpel. Enter Ryan Walter.

    Walter struggled with the mound, too, while facing his first batter, Mitch Schueck, and he ended up uncorking a wild pitch that moved everyone up 90 feet, scoring Hessler for a 2-0 Gabelsville lead. Schueck then lifted a 3-2 pitch to shallow right, but Trout smartly took a chance on tagging up from third base with the wet conditions and made it home safely as the throw sailed high. Walter would get out of the inning without further damage, but it was now 3-0 Owls, and that 3-spot seemed like a plethora of runs compared to the first two games of the series (both 1-0 wins for the Owls).

    And it proved to be more than enough, as Engle did not allow a hit over the final three frames and the Owls had their sweep.

    What is lost in this series is just how good the Limeport pitchers performed. Paul Smith tossed a five-hitter in the opener, allowing just one unearned run and Scott Stewart threw a three-hitter in Game 2, striking out 10 in defeat. So the Owls' aggregate totals for the series on offense reads like this: 5 runs and 10 hits.

    "We are scrapping for runs right now," said Danner. "We need to keep finding ways to score runs because we haven't been hitting well lately. Although, that can no doubt be attributed to how well Limeport pitched and played defense in this series. But we do need to cut down on our strikeouts."

    The Owls (29-8-1) await the winner of the Yankees/Fleetwings series, which is deadlocked at a game apiece thanks to the 4-4 tie in Game 3 Tuesday night.

    And the winner of that series will have their hands full because Danner will get a chance to reset his rotation for the Finals, probably going with Betz, Trout and Engle in Games     1-through-3. And the Owls still have Chuck Nicholas and Justin Konnick waiting in the wings as they haven't even thrown in the postseason yet.

    The only player with two hits in the game was Chad Warga, who was 2-for-3 for Limeport, who finished the season with a record of 26-9. The defeat was the ninth consecutive semifinals loss for the Bulls over the last three seasons.