KC Cards

Kyle Chapman PONY League's 14 year old all-star team combined sensational pitching by righthander Brett Gibson with timely pinch hitting by Joe "the Hammer" Silver and the fleet feet of Sean "Maury Wills" Lamont, to defeat a very tough Garland Cubs team from North Texas in K.C.'s first game of the 2003 PONY South Zone Championship on Saturday night. The visiting K.C. team managed an infield single and stolen base by Matt West, but no more, to go scoreless in the top of the first inning. Garland threatened in the bottom of the 1st inning. With two outs, it converted an infield error and a grounder double just inside the first base line into a second and third situation. However, Brett Gibson induced Garland's big pitcher to line out to Daniel Rothenberg in deep right-centerfield for the third out of the inning. Scoreless after 1. K.C. went down 1-2-3 in the 2nd, and Brett Gibson sandwiched a fly to centerfield between two nice strikeouts to do the same to Garland. Scoreless after 2. K.C. managed only a two out walk to Brian Borski in the 3rd inning, but could not convert. In the bottom of the third, with a runner on second (courtesy of a single and a wild pitch) and one out, Garland hit a ground ball to Brian Borski at third. The runner on second was trapped. Brian ran him back to second, where Corey Triche received the throw, ran him toward third, where Matt West received the throw and ran the runner down for the second out of the inning. Brett ended the inning by striking out Garland's 3-hole hitter, stranding a Garland runner on second base. Once again, scoreless after 3. K.C. went down 1-2-3 again in the 4th inning, and Brett Gibson induced Garland into 3 straight groundouts in the bottom of the frame. Scoreless after 4. In the top of the 5th inning, fleet Sean Lamont hustled out an infield single, advanced to second on a wild pitch, stole third, and scored on a wild pitch. It wasn't pretty, but it broke the scoreless standoff. K.C. leads 1-0 in the middle of 5. In the bottom of the 5th inning, Brett got the leadoff batter to fly out to left field, the second batter to ground out to third, and induced a hard grounder to short. Matt West fired to first, but the throw was a little high. Beau Faulk did his Shaquille O'Neal impression, leaping high in the air to snag the jump ball, and landed on the base a fraction of a second before the Garland runner to keep the Cubs off the board at the end of 5. K.C. led 1-0 after 5. In the top of the 6th inning, Joe Silver pinch hit for Mark Robichau with one out in the inning. Flash back to the night before. Joe managed to tie for second in the home run hitting derby. Well, he took this at-bat as an opportunity to break that tie, hammering a 2-0 fastball down the left field line and over the fence for a 2-0 K.C. lead. In the bottom of the 6th, Garland threatened again, getting a single from its leadoff hitter, who advanced to second on a wild pitch. However, Brett came up big and tough once again for the umpteenth time this post-season. He got three successive batters on a strikeout, a flyout to Beau Faulk at first, and a groundout to Brian Borski at third. After 6, the score remained 2-0 in favor of K.C. Daniel Rothenberg and Beau Faulk opened the 7th inning with twin long flyouts to centerfield. Sean Lamont reached first on an infield error, but was caught stealing to end the K.C. threat. In the bottom of the 7th, the big Garland pitcher hit a long fly ball to left field. Mark Robichau went back to the fence, and hauled the fly in for the first out of the inning. After the K.C. parents started breathing again, Terence Jackson lined a double down the rightfield line. Daniel Rothenberg gathered the ball in and fired a strike to Matt West at second, just a millisecond too late to nail the fast Garland runner. Keegan Johnson flied out to Jamie Reingold in center, but Jackson advanced to third on a wild pitch. A Garland pinch hitter ran the count to 2-2 against Brett Gibson, but with two outs and a runner on third, Gibson was not to be denied. He fired a high hard fastball into the upper right hand corner of the strike zone to advance Kyle Chapman's 14 year old all-stars another step closer to their goal. Final score, K.C. 2, Garland 0. How dominating was Brett Gibson on the mound? Seven innings, NO runs, 4 hits, NO walks, 5 strikeouts, and one VERY sweaty t-shirt. On Monday night at 7:30pm, K.C. will face the winner of the Corpus Christi Westside vs. East Cobb Georgia Astros game that will be played tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. It should be an exciting game, certainly worth a short 5 hour drive to LOVELY Gonzales, Louisiana. This is Scott Rothenberg saying, "I was up until 2:30am last night due to some veangeful boudin balls, but it was worth it to see tonight's game. GOOOOOOOOOOO K.C.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"