Fall 2011 Tournament Recap: First Round

Last weekend, 14 teams came together to compete for the prestigious Wentworth Trophy® to close out what was the most competitive season of WAKA Kickball on the Peninsula yet. Time to take a look back at the results of this truly epic finale for the Fall 2011 season...

photos courtesy of Mary Katherine Evans, Free Ballin' & Nick Sutton, JFK

1st Round

Lick It Before You Kick It 5, Jiminy Kick It 0 

Wheelz stepped up at the top
of the line up for Lick It.

Lick It came into this tournament missing a couple of key players. Thomas "Juice" Welch, their leadoff kicker, was unavailable while out of town. Charger Matt Martin was out for the entire morning, and his status was uncertain for the afternoon. And as if that wasn't enough, all-world catcher and #2 kicker Roger Jackson came down with a nasty stomach virus that had him out of commission on Saturday. But captains George Kiriazidis and Amy Lowe were determined not to let that stop them from going after the championship. To fill the void left by the missing superstars, the team looked to Ryan McNally and Bryant "Wheelz" Bethea.

Jiminy Kick It came in with low expectations. As the 12th seed, they had nothing to lose and were going to give it everything they got. Charger Brandon Accordino, catcher Anthony Thounhurst, and 1B Jeremy Jackson played very well, and limited the normally high powered LIBYKI offense. But in the end, Lick It was able to manufacture the runs and Wheelz, McNally, and the rest of the Lick It defense played nearly flawlessly in the impressive shut out.


Jiminy Kick-It

 Shake N Bake 8, Rumspringa 3

Ch Bryan Turcotte loads the gun. 

In week 1 of the Fall 2011 season, these two teams squared off in a scoreless 0-0 tie. Both defenses were on point and neither offense was able to get across the plate. In that first game, SnB's Brent Wentworth and Rum's Matt Wellbrock pitched outstanding in the duel. In fact, going back to last Spring, these two pitchers have thrown a combined 20 straight scoreless innings against each other (Rumspringa tied Wentworth's VIPs 0-0 on April 13th). Would this important playoff game follow the same scoreless pattern when Wentworth and Wellbrock meet?

Nope. Right off the bat, Rumspringa's top of the order executed their short game perfectly, put runners on, and manufactured two runs to take the early lead. Shake N Bake was not to be deterred, as they came right back in the bottom of the first and scored 2 runs of their own to tie it. From there it was all SnB. The high powered offense (6.55 rpg, 2nd in the league) took over and buried Rumspringa with perfect bunts down the line, aggressive base running, and strong kicking away. After the rough start, Shake N Bake ended up cruising to victory, 8-3.

Wellbrock on the mound. 

Battlestar Ballsacktica 5, Kick Ass 0 (Forfeit) 
Kick Ass as the #7 seed, was capable of making a deep run during the tournament. But alas, they fell one female short of fielding a team, sending BB on to the quarters. Despite the no show in the tourney, KA had a great showing in their first season.

Jagernauts 3, Free Ballin' 2

This was the 8th vs. 9th seeds and it was about as close as you'd expect it to be, and featured a great matchup on the pichers mound between the Jagers' Mike Seals and Free Ballin's Mark Flores.

"Seals was on his game for the tourney and was dialing up some nasty stuff. head ref George Kiriazidis said afterwards, "and Mark Flores is simply a phenomenal pitcher. His stuff is filthy and you can sense the kicker feeling uncomforable in the box."

The two hurlers were supported by solid bunt defense as well. Joe Mazzitti particularly earned a lot of praise from his teammates for his performance behind the plate.

"Mazzitti did a hell of a job filling in for Kevin [Gitkos] at catcher." head coach Justin Littell said in the post game press conference.

Gitkos missed the game due to military obligations. Many pundits predicted an early exit for the 'Nauts without arguably their best defensive player. But Mazzitti was solid and helped stifle an explosive Free Ballin' offensive attack.

On the other side, Free Ballin's Ch Frank Council and C Brian Neal were on point making plays and smothering bunts all morning. However, the Jagers feature one of the best 1-2 punches at the top of their order in Mazzitti and Dan Moore. Even the best defenses struggle to keep them off the bases. Lead by this pair, the Jagers were able to manufacture a couple of runs... Going into the bottom of the 5th, The 'Nauts held a narrow lead. Free Ballin' threatened to tie the game up by putting some runners on, but in the end the Jagers pulled it out and earned a trip to the next round.

Just For Kicks 4, Chubby Gangsters 3

JFK is among the league's elite teams, as evidenced by their 0.848 lifetime winning percentage (1st all time in VA Peninsula history for teams with greater than 2 seasons played). They had an outstanding Fall season, leading the league in runs scored (75) and runs allowed (13). JFK finished with a 5 game winning streak and looked completely dominant. Many experts to finally break through and win their first championship. So, with all that said, their first round matchup against the 2-8-1 Chubby Gangsters would be a cake walk, right?

As Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast my friend..."

The Chubby Gangsters, lead by the play of charger Steve Midlik came out on fire Saturday morning.

"Steve played a hell of a game," CG's Keith Morehart commented, "between making sure we made the smart plays and wicked throws to Thane [Osterdahl] at first. Not to mention he was 2 for 2 with 2 runs."

Check out Melissa's right ankle! Yikes! (luckily, she is
doing better and the injury wasn't serious)

With Midlik and the rest of the Gangsters playing strong defense, it was up to the offense to do work. Lead by Elizabeth Ricker's 3 RKIs, they did just that. Going into the bottom of the 5th, the Gangbangers held onto a 3-2 lead. But that's when things turned around for JFK, and they showed why they are one of the best.  JFK got a couple runners on base and started putting the pressure on the CG defense. Melissa Rarick misplayed a couple of difficult throws to 3rd, including one in which JFK's Wes McClain slid in hard and injured her ankle.

"It's part of the game. Wes did apologize like 5 times," Rarick said afterwards, "... I tried to get out of the way, but still make the out at the same time. Neither one of those things happened, but still a great game!"

The resulting series saw JFK score 2 runs for the walk off victory and a narrow escape to the next round.

"C'mon, who really thought we'd be beating JFK until their last at bats?" Morehart asked, "We knew we were better than we were given credit for... WAKA VA Peninsula can sleep on us next year, but our squad is going to make you look silly if you do."

Stevens and Pinier look forward to the 2nd round.

Vicious & Delicious 9, NKotB 3

Shit Can Tommy

Injuries ravaged VD headed into this week, and they were forced to play with only 9 players. In fact, there was a question going into the weekend whether they would field a team at all. But the team decided that they would not let their championship go without a fight.

With having only 9 players, VD was able to turnover the lineup pretty quickly and jumped out to an early lead. The top of the order, James Salgado, Justin Schauf, and Casey Davies set the table for the big boots of Dave Dixon and Wilson Gideon (in the first three innings, Dixon came up to the plate with the bases loaded each time). The bottom of the lineup, Kate Barcus, Marie Harper, Zoe Holcomb, and Tommy "Shit Can" Zuppke did work as well, consistently pushing it back to the top and scoring runs. At the end of 4 innings, VD had built a 9-0 lead.

But NKotB would not go out without a fight. Salgado and Zuppke did a very effective job defending the Kickheads short game, so they decided to switch it up in the 5th. By kicking away, NKotB was able to find some holes in the short-handed VD outfield. The Kickheads extended the inning and rallied to score 3 runs, but unfortunately for them, they ran out of outs and VD advanced, 9-3. And while the 3 run 5th inning wasn't nearly enough to scare VD, it's worth noting that the champs did have to expend extra energy to put NKotB away. This would be an important later in the afternoon.

Burning Bridges 8, Foul Balls 1
The one vs sixteen match up went as expected with Burning Bridges cruising to the easy first round victory. Their combination of skill and athleticism was overwhelming. But the scrappy Foulies did have a highlight when Nathaniel "Jorts" Johnson scored a run late in the game to avoid the shutout. He then celebrated like he won the 7th game of the World Series and damn near destroyed Wade Brock with a vicious chest bump.

5 O'Clockers 5, Chicken Tetrazzini 0 (Forfeit) 
Too much chicken. Not enough tetrazzini.