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A night of three fabulous games produce
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Syosset, NY 17 June 2009—A very, very wet 2009 season drew to an historic finish last night as four teams became two and two became one all on a single night, racing ahead of still more rain. When SYAC's Senior League commissioners saw the forecast on Tuesday for the ten days to come, they knew it was time for "Plan B." If the National Weather Service's projection was correct, there would be no way to have a Championship on Thursday. This projection, like most of NWS's work on our behalf this spring, turned out to be correct. A plan was conceived to have both division finals and the League Championship games all in the same night. A week from now, school would be over, many kids would be heading off to parties and summer vacations. It was Wednesday or never. And so it came to pass on Wednesday evening at 6:30pm that Sterling Sanitary Supply defeated the Hot Shots by a score of 20-9 at Thomas P. Longo Memorial Field while Orange Crush defeated Iavarone's Red Hot Chili Peppers in the Park by a score of 10-2.
About twenty minutes after the first games ended, the Championship began in the Park. A coin toss made Orange Crush the home team and Dylan Mitchell began to pitch her second game of the evening. She would be faced by Emily Emerson and both girls went the distance and pitched excellent games.
Sterling got on the board early with two runs and added two later in the game to build up a 4-0 lead. Orange Crush finally got on the board with 2 runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. After beating back a Sterling threat in the top of the sixth, and with the lower third of their order batting in the bottom of the sixth, Crush opened the inning with two hits. But moments later, with one out, Emily Emerson retired the next batter on a popup and quickly ran to third to complete the double-play to end the game, and the season.
Sterling coaches and players converge on the field in jubilation at the moment of victory.The real story of this game was defense. Both teams played very well but the Sterling girls defense was rock solid, where the Crush defense, so potent earlier in their Division Final, seemed disoriented against Sterling. While they did recover their form in the top of the sixth, earlier miscuses ended up being very costly. The Board of SYAC Girls Softball congratulates both these excellent teams for their hard work and dedication all season long. We also thank Russ and Rick for their excellent umpiring of this very tense and exciting game and the great crowd that came out for a last great night of SYAC Softball for 2009. See you next year! Story by SYAC pool reporters. Photos by Roger Mummert.
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Final 2009 Senior League Standings
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