By Ted Waddell
GRAHAMSVILLE — May 18, 2007 — In the second of a three-game series, the visiting Tornadoes of Tuxedo proverbially took the wind out of the Tri-Valley Bears in Tuesday’s afternoon’s Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association (OCIAA) Division V baseball game, 13-8.
In the wake of a scoreless first inning, Tuxedo (8-7, 5-0 Division V) sent three runners across the plate in the top of the second.
In the bottom of the second, the host Bears scored a run to cut the Tuxedo advantage to 3-1.
The top of the third was big for the Tornadoes as they scored five runs, including a inside-the-park home run by Joe McNamee, to expand their lead to 8-1.
The Bears went down in order in the bottom of the third.
But T-V (9-6, 2-3 Div. V) made it a 8-3 ballgame by scoring two runs in the fourth.
Scoring in the fifth frame was even as both the Tornadoes and Bears sent three runners scampering home.
Tuxedo scored one in the top of the sixth, and T-V scored twice in the bottom of the frame to make it a 12-8 contest heading into the final inning.
At their turn at bat in the seventh, the Tornadoes sent one runner home and then held T-V scoreless in the bottom of the seventh to close out their five-run victory.
Tuxedo starting pitcher Eric Mondschein faced a bases-loaded situation with one out in the bottom of the fifth.
Relief pitcher John Collins took over the mound. He threw three pitches and his teammates turned a double play to preserve the Tornadoes’ five-run lead.
William Elberth started on the pitcher’s mound for the Bears, but after 2 and 1/3 innings, a throbbing thumb forced him to the bench.
Bo Murphy took over, hurling about 110 pitches.
Tuxedo, which clinched the OCIAA Division V title with the victory, was led by McNamee and Billy Shaler, who had two RBIs.
For the Bears, Fred Moore was 3-for-4 with two RBIs, Murphy went 2-for-4 with one RBI, Sean Drown recorded a pair of RBIs and Brendan Musa walked twice to get on base and scored two runs.
“John Collins got us out of a tough inning,” Tuxedo Coach Marco Margotta said.
T-V Coach John Rusin said that his team gave Tuxedo too many outs and made too many errors (seven).
“You can’t give a good hitting team that many chances,” Rusin said.
“I thought we hit the ball pretty well, but we also had some tough luck,” he added, noting that a bases-loaded, one-out grounder to shortstop started the double play which ended the Bears’ scoring threat in the fifth.