Rebels Report Rebels vs. Impact Thursday, April 8th (8:00 pm) L 6-1

What an interesting and exciting game I saw tonight! The Rebels and Impact faced off in a showdown of two unbeaten teams. Coach Rodney knew this was going to be a tight, low-scoring game. Every run would be important.

The Rebels batted first. They were facing the mighty Impact pitcher Danye, who throws plenty of heat. Allie smacked a single and stole second base to lead off the game. Alyssa showed excellent patience at the plate and eventually got a hit up the middle, scoring Allie from second base! Yea! In a tight game, Coach Rodney knew that run was very important! Kaiti and Brittany went down swinging -- a lot of strikeouts were going to happen tonight, Coach Rodney thought. Then Ashley came to the plate. In the fall season, Ashley seemed to own Danye -- Ashley hit anything Danye threw! Tonight was no different, as Ashley smacked a grounder up the first base line. Too bad it went right to the first baseman for an easy out.

In the bottom of the first, the first Impact batter got a hit. Then the next batter got hit by a pitch. Rats! That put two runners on, with the big-swinging 3 & 4 hitters due up. The big lefty launched a hit into center field. Deneé made a nice play on it and brought it in quickly, holding the batter to a single. All right! With two runners on, the cleanup hitter creamed a ball to left field. Elizabeth made a nice play on it, but it fell in for a hit. And the runner would have scored a homerun except for the excellent hustle of Elizabeth. She tracked the ball down, fired it back to Brittany in the infield, who threw to Alyssa at the mound, who threw to Mary Cameron at the plate! WOW! The runner was now at third base with nobody out. Three runs were in. That was a very important runner to keep from scoring! Alyssa really concentrated and took charge of the next three batters, striking them all out on full counts! That runner on third didn't score! Yippee! After one inning, the Rebels trailed 3-1.

In the second inning, Deneé, Mary Cameron, and Elizabeth all struck out. OK, everyone join the strikeout party! In the bottom of the second, two more Impact batters joined the strikeout party. Kaiti also made an excellent play on a grounder up the first base line, putting out the runner unassisted.

In the third inning, the Rebels showed some life. Kathryn had an excellent at-bat, laying off some high pitches that looked enticing, and working the count to four balls. That brought in Coach "Wild Thing" Bob, named either because of his party animal ways or because of his pitching reputation. He apparently tried to be like the Impact pitcher, and promptly struck out Kathryn. Allie and Alyssa then both made contact, but they were easy grounders to the pitcher. In the bottom of the third, Alyssa found a groove and struck out three straight batters! Welcome to our little strikeout party! Going to the fourth inning, the Rebels still trailed 3-1 in a very tight game.

In the fourth inning, Kaiti and Brittany had good at-bats, but eventually fell on strikes. Brittany tried the old fake bunt, which looked beautiful! She just couldn't catch up to the pitcher's heat. That brought Ashley to the plate. Once again, Ashley made contact against the Impact pitcher! She lifted a fly ball to the shortstop, who made the nice catch. But hey, 2 times up and two batted balls off the Impact pitcher -- not too many people can say they did that!

The bottom of the fourth inning marked the first appearance of Allie as a Rebels pitcher. She relieved Alyssa, who was ill. And what a performance -- Allie struck out the first batter! The meat of the Impact lineup continued to mash the ball. Elizabeth almost caught a line drive and Kaiti almost landed a huge fly ball from the cleanup hitter. The Impact ended up scoring 3 runs before time expired. Game over -- Rebels fall 6-1 to Impact. But everyone at the game knew it was much closer than the score indicated!

The Rebels showed some great courage tonight, facing the fastest pitcher in the league. Everyone took their cuts and didn't freeze up. Some nights it's easy to pick Homer's Hero, and some nights it's difficult. Tonight was on the difficult side. Ashley certainly had an excellent batting performance tonight. But Coach Rodney looked to an important defensive play early in the game that kept the Rebels in a tight contest. Elizabeth's hustle to prevent a homerun was a critical factor in preventing a huge Impact rally. So tonight's Homer's Hero is Elizabeth -- way to go!

I will see everyone at the pictures on Saturday -- I'll be the one wearing a big hat and carrying a sword!

Your faithful Rebel Reporter,
Major Homer K. Fielding