THRILLA AT FRASA! Scintillating Spirit win

First of all, YES, I did leave early tonight. But NO I didn't ditch. I was forced to leave because I have a crucial Physics final tomorrow early morning (which I'm presently not studying for because I'm doing this). But I did listen to EVERY SECOND of this one on the radio once I left..

Now on to the game..

It was a simply unbelievable win tonight by the North Shore Spirit, a spark for a team that desperately needed one and seemed without life before the bottom of tonight's fateful 8th inning, in which the Spirit ralled from a 5-1 deficit to win 6-5, giving Mark Comolli the win and setting up Ryan McCally's 3rd save of the season. The energy level in the Spirit went from near-lifeless to high and enthusiastic, and maybe, just maybe, they will start to turn it around. With John Kelly on the hill tomorrow, then a trip to lowly New Haven, the chance to string some wins together is there. Now it's time to capitalize.

It once again started out poorly (I already had a "we lost again" article written at Fraser). The leadoff hitter reached on a weak infield hit which Yuri could have had with a nice charging play. The second man reached on a throwing error by Eric Storey; another throwing error, this one by MArcos AGramonte, allowed the leadoff man Julien to score and made it 1-0 Brockton with nobody out. Then Craig Lewis laid down a bunt that rolled fair down the 3rd base line and was an infield hit. Jones then grounded into a 6-4-3 double play which scored Bustos to make it 2-0. The inning ended on a Zacuto strikeout but the damage was done. There were 2 runs on 2 hits and 2 errors, BUT it could have been called 4 errors by the Spirit. Poor defense abound. Not Morse's fault in the least.

The Spirit shaved it to 2-1 in teh bottom of the 2nd as an Eric Storey RBI groundout plated Alex Trezza, who doubled early in the inning- but it would soon get worse. The Spirit got runners in scoring position but failed to capitalize in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th innings. It was a truly weak display as the Spirit mustered up just 1 run on 2 hits through 7. And the Rox dug the hole deeper in the 5th. Scanzano led the inning off with a walk. An error by Trezza and another error by Agramonte put Bustos on 1st and Scanzano on 3rd. Bustos hit 2nd on a passed ball. Craig Lewis' 2 RBI single made it 4-1 Rox and the Brockton fans were feeling very confident. This only got worse in the 8th as Brockton picked up an RBI off of Mark Comolli with a sacrifice fly. They loaded up the bases with just one out, but Comolli bore down and got the Spirit out of the jam. This wound up to be crucial as the rally was about to begin.

*The Spirit loaded the bases with no outs on a walk to Macchi and singles by Travis Oglesby and Trezza. Following a Storey strikeout, pinch hitter Garrett Weir drove a single through the left side, plating Oglesby with North Shore’s second run. Yuri Sanchez kept the rally going with an RBI basehit that cut the deficit to 5-3. Marcos Agramonte pulled the Spirit to within one with an RBI groundout to second. With two down and runners on second and third, Rob Fischer played the hero role. Fischer laced a single to center, scoring Weir and Sanchez with the game-winning runs.*

Ryan McCally came out to pitch the 9th; he gave up a leadoff single but other than that effectively bounced back from Monday's heartbreak, closing out the Rox and giving Spirit fans that glimmer of hope that the season may not be lost after all. A truly inspiring win tonight- we must keep it up!

There was a good crowd on hand tonight (about 2800) but most were gone at rally time (about 400 remained). The biggest cheer of the night was for the introduction of ex-Sox pitcher Oil Can Boyd, who will NOT pitch at Fraser tomorrow despite the original plan.

The Spirit improve to 11-11 with the win. They sit 6.5 games behind Quebec and 1 out of Brockton.

Quebec lost to the Grays tonight 9-8; the Jackals topped the Cutters 3-2 in 11 innings; and the Tornadoes out slugged Elmira 8-7.