Monticello Men’s Softball League

Fitness Factory continues its rampage

Trouncing of Superior Roofing continues juggernaut’s run

By RICHARD A. ROSS

MONTICELLO, NY — For Fitness Factory, the defending champion of the Monticello Men’s Softball League, this season has picked up right where the last one led off.

Coming off their latest tournament victory in Pennsylvania on June 10 and 11, the men in orange and blue exuded confidence as they faced Superior Roofing on June 13.

With ace pitcher JoJo VanKeuren on the mound, Fitness Factory can generally rest assured that opposing teams are not going to rack up many runs. In this game, VanKeueren limited Superior Roofing to a single run, an RBI single by Antonio ‘Pookie’ Simmons in the third inning. Despite some early errors, Fitness Factory showed its usual good fielding ability, a factor that helped them handily defeat Lewis Auto Parts in a crossover game two weeks ago.

In that game, everything that Lewis hit found its way into a glove. Many of those hard-hit balls were gobbled up by shortstop Edwin ‘Flaco’ Rodriguez.

Rodriguez was not present for this game but his brother Pete was. He drew his teammates’ enthusiastic cheers with a nifty inside-out swing that netted him an RBI double in the second inning.

Superior Roofing pitcher John Harding retired the D-Tech wonders in the first inning before the roof began to fall in.

Fitness got four in the second, three in the third, another two in the fourth before exploding for 16 runs in the fifth inning, during which they sent 20 men to the plate. Danny Diaz and Rob Keesler fared no better in relief as the relentless hitting of sluggers Jay Legenos, Keith Shaddock, Aaron Dingle, Alex Salazar, Dennis Rivera, Des Gonzalez, Shane Connor and Rodriguez kept the roofers running. The final blow was a grand-slam home run by Jay Gallo, courtesy of an outfield error during the fifth inning drubbing.

The game ended mercifully by virtue of the 10-run rule.

Fitness Factory improved to 7-0 this season while Superior Roofing fell to 2-7.

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