Softball

Deliverance

It’s seventh heaven for Charlie’s Angels in come-from-behind series-clinching win over gritty Klein and Sons

By RICHARD A. ROSS

MONGAUP VALLEY, NY — In some of the greatest boxing bouts of history, champions have gone down and hit the mat, only to rise up in the end, seemingly against all odds, to deliver the knockout punch and secure the victory.

Though they haven’t won it all yet, Charlie’s Angels has already proven that they possess that same resiliency and lethal instinct and that you can never count them out.

So it was that the Angels, who were toppled by Klein and Sons a year ago in the semifinals and embarrassed by the ax-wielding ladies in blue and white in game one, rebounded to win game two 7-3 to set the stage for a dramatic game three.

This was the first year in a long time when both semifinal series had gone the distance, something Charlie’s Angels team captain Jo Walls noted was a great thing for the league. “Win or lose, it’s all about having fun,” she said before taking the field.

Walls meant that sincerely, but the feisty captain also bears the heart of a winner behind that pleasant and calm exterior. By night’s end, Walls would get to celebrate a resounding victory as she crossed the plate with the winning run in the bottom of the seventh, following Charlie’s Angels’ most dramatic come-from-behind 8-7 win over the team that nearly ousted them again.

“I’ve been waiting all my life to do that,” said a supercharged Walls, who, like her relieved teammates, got to bathe in the afterglow of a most unlikely win against a team that seemed more than any other team in the league to have Charlie’s Angels’ number.

Both teams had watched with rapt attention as underdog L&B Tack ousted two-time defending champion Cooper Paint in come-from-behind fashion. Secretly, each wondered if this second game could yield another upset. Klein and Sons reached the finals in 2007 by beating Charlie’s Angels and they were only one win away from doing it again.

But to eliminate a team with vast experience, a long history of winning big games and a remarkable season record was going to be a Herculean task. After last year’s debacle, Charlie’s Angels were in no mood to tinker with Klein and Sons and so it began.

Although their lineup was deficient in spots compared to last year, Klein and Sons showed they were not the least bit intimidated by teal zeal.

An E-6 put Jill Hubert Simon on to lead off the game. Subsequent singles by Barbara Ward Blank and Chris “Jersey” Price loaded the bases with no outs. An overthrow by Shannon Dietrich on an attempted double play allowed two runs to score on a ball hit by Torri DeGraff and, just like that, Klein and Sons was in the lead.

Charlie’s Angels responded by tying the game up in the bottom of the first. A rare walk issued by Klein pitcher Susan Waddell and an E-6 put two on. Tonya Martin singled in one run and a second scored on Dietrich’s sac fly.

Once again, Klein and Sons answered the bell.

In the top of the second, they parlayed a leadoff walk by Chris Klein and a double by Kayla Scannell into a pair of runs, as Dietrich made an error at short to allow runs three and four to cross the plate. Waddell blanked the Angels in the bottom of the frame and the 4-2 lead lasted through the third inning as neither team scored.

With two outs in the fourth inning, Walls suddenly began losing the plate. She walked four consecutive K&S batters to hand the log ladies a 5-2 lead before inducing a 6-4 ground out to extricate herself from the bases-loaded jam. A single in that spot might have been the difference for Klein and Sons. If you’re going to oust a team with a championship bloodline, you’d best deliver the knockout punch when they’re reeling. Stun them and they’re apt to come back at you with fury.

Charlie’s Angels got a run back in the bottom of the fourth with a pair of doubles. After Terri Hess hit a pinch-hit two bagger, Walls used her patented inside-out swing to drive one over first base for a RBI double to cut Klein and Sons’ lead to 5-3.

Scannell led off the top of the sixth with a homer to left. Skirting the bases with speed rarely seen in the league, the 2007 Tri-Valley graduate beat the relay as she slid in ahead of the would-be tag by Hess at the plate to make it 6-3.

Klein parlayed three singles into another run as Ward Blank drove in Waddell for the seventh run. With runners at second and third, Walls and company elected to give hard-hitting Nikomi Thompson a free pass to first and pitch to DeGraff instead. A wise move: DeGraff popped out harmlessly to the mound.

Once again, the league’s best team in the regular season (21-0) had dodged another potential lethal punch. A single there might have made it a 9-4 game instead of 7-4.

With six outs left, Charlie’s needed to chip away at that Klein and Sons lead. They got one run in the bottom of the sixth as Heidi Hewlitt Blade drove a 0-2 pitch through the infield for a RBI single. The Angels had set the table with a single by Martin and a walk by Dietrich.

The teams headed into the seventh with Klein and Sons nursing a tenuous 7-5 lead.

The Angels needed a stop and they got it as Klein and Sons went down in order.

With the bottom of their order coming up, the Angels were not necessarily in the best of positions, but to a team with their kind of pedigree that never matters. All they needed was a break and they got not one but two.

Klein and Sons picked the worst possible time for a defensive lapse. Like Cooper Paint in the first game of the night, errors would be their undoing.

Nikki Krom’s slow grounder to second resulted in the first fielding miscue. It was followed by another as a grounder to third, which should have resulted in a force at second, resulted in a dropped throw at second base that allowed batter Hess to reach first.

Now, there were two runners on with no outs when, by all rights, there should have been two outs with no runners on.

After Robyn Gannon popped up to third, Walls delivered her most timely single to make it 7-6. She advanced to second base, putting runners on second and third. That set the stage for Jess Bradley’s game-winning single as the Angels emerged the 8-7 victors.

The Angels erupted in post-game glee, while Klein and Sons walked quietly off the field. In truth, for a team that had struggled mightily through the season, winning one game in the series and handing Charlie’s Angels its only loss of the season to date was a big accomplishment for Paul Hubert’s squad.

“We wanted to be competitive,” said Hubert, who had to cobble together a lineup after losing some key players from the 2007 run and playing without Kaylie Ackerley.

Charlie’s Angels will face L&B Tack in game one of the finals on August 12, pitting different teams from those present in the 2007 classic. For the first time in years, the ladies from Cooper Paint will get to drink beer and watch as spectators.

Visit riverreportersports.com for an album of pictures and up-to-the-minute reporting on the final series with L&B Tack.