Woodland Championship Game, Antiques 12 — Cal Bears 6

We added another Woodland-Davis Tournament championship to our list. This is our fourth Woodland-Davis championship, and our first since 2001. See our “About” page for the others.

Danny Moore led off the game with a base hit and came around to score a run on a double play ball.

We got two more in the second. Robin South got a two-out base hit, stole second, and moved to third on Ted Francis’ base hit. Ted stole second and moved up to third when their catcher over-threw third trying to pick Robin. Zach Jones drove in Ted with a base hit.

Front row (L-R): Rich Mangini, Don Nelson, Denny Brown, Bob Loflin, Elgin Williams, Randy Cobb, Robin South. Back row (L-R): Danny Moore, Rich Hinkle, Rich Battiato, Wiley Weiss, George Esposito, Bill Bonekat, Ted Francis, Tom Squier, Zach Jones, Mike Ching. Not pictured: Larry Grant, Bill Bay

We added a 4-spot in the fifth. Robin led off the inning with another base hit and stolen base. Zach drove him in with a single to the wall in left. Randy Cobb followed with a base hit. Danny kept things going with an RBI single to put runners on the corners. After a pitching change, Danny stole second. Wiley Weiss drilled a shot to left that scored Randy and Danny.

We took a 7-0 lead into the top of the seventh. To that point, Don Nelson had scattered 7 hits, and was backed by some stellar defense. Wiley made a diving catch in center in the second inning. Danny made a running catch in foul territory just inside the side fence to end the third. The Bears mounted a threat in the fourth. Jim Lortz got a two-out single to center, but Wiley threw out Greg DeArte trying to score from second to end the inning and the threat.

We got one more in the top of the seventh. Zach led off with a single. Randy and Ted (running for Zach) executed a perfect hit and run to put runners at the corners. Danny got another hit and RBI to put us ahead 8-0.

The Bears got back into the game by scoring three runs in the seventh on 4 hits and hit batter. Greg DeArte led off with a base hit. Pete Ayres, Pat Luber, and Norm Losk each got RBI singles in the inning.

Rich Battiato relieved Don and got a 1-2-3 8th inning.

We added what proved to be 4 important insurance runs in the ninth. Danny got his third RBI on a double that plated Randy, who had walked. Wiley, Rich Battiato, and Bob Loflin added RBI hits to extend our lead to 12-3.

The ninth got a bit hairy. Scott Stevens walked, moved up on an error and scored on a sacrifice fly. Ayres and Craig Parker singled, and Loritz drew a walk to score the second run and load the bases with one out. Richie then got Luber on a sac fly, and Losk on another fly ball to end the game.

Final score: 12-6.

Danny ended up 4-5, with 3 runs, 3 RBI, a double, and at least 2 stolen bases. Zach went 3-4 with 2 runs and 2 RBI. Robin was also 3-4, starting two rallies, scoring 2 runs, with a double, a hit-by-pitch, and a couple of stolen bases. Wiley’s line was 2-5, 1 run and 3 RBI.