By Ted Waddell
LIBERTY — May 17, 2005 – Somehow you just know it’s going to be a bad day on Friday the 13th.
For the Liberty Indians varsity baseball team, black cats crossing the infield, sliding under a ladder into second base or other omens of ill portent didn’t phase them in the least. But the final inning of Friday’s non-league game versus the visiting Fallsburg Comets dashed their hopes of pulling a good luck rabbit out of the hat for a come-from-behind win.
In the wake of a scoreless first inning, the Comets scored two runs in the top of the second.
At their turn at bat in the bottom of the second, the Indians scored a pair of runs to make it a 2-2 ballgame.
However, Fallsburg (5-9) jumped out to a 4-2 lead in the third.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Indians closed to within a run.
Then came Liberty’s ‘un-lucky’ seventh, as Fallsburg sent two batters across the plate in the top of the seventh inning to record a 6-3 victory.
In the bottom of the seventh, the Indians went quietly into the night as their hopes of victory dissipated like an early morning mist rising toward the sun.
Harris Seletsky struck out seven batters in six innings to pick up the win for Fallsburg. Donald Morton then pitched a scoreless bottom of the seventh to nail down the victory.
Mike Kushetsky threw a complete game for Liberty (3-18). He also had an RBI. Teammate Pete Panagokas added two hits in the contest.
For the Comets, Jon Nardi had a couple of hits, including a double and a pair of RBIs.