Week two sees injuries, close games5 min read

Ricardo Romero, of Rokzoo Bucket List, makes a out from the shortstop position late in the game against A Day in the West on Thursday, June 8, at Posse Grounds Park. Rokzoo lost 9-7 and sits in 4th place at 1-1 after two weeks of play. Daniel Hargis/Larson Newspapers

Week two of the Adult Summer Softball League saw some changes in the standings, and four of the six games were decided by three runs or less.

The Sedona Fire District saw action, too, when it was summoned to respond to an eye injury sustained during the middle set of games.

Shane Byrum, Rough Country Pools & Spa’s pitcher, celebrated his 48th birthday with a 10-7 win over the Dirty Rats in the team’s second game on Thursday, June 8. A Day in the West stayed in first place after just the second week of play.
A Day in the West maintained its spot atop the standings with a 9-7 victory against Rokzoo Bucket List in its first close game after double-digit wins in week one.

It held an 8-3 lead in the top of the fifth inning before Rokzoo’s Carlos Cervantes later hit a two-run single to pull within one at 8-7. But a fly out ended the inning, and Day in the West added an insurance run in the bottom half of the frame with less than 10 minutes left of the allotted 55 in the game.

“We always come out to win,” Rokzoo pitcher Don Bauder said. “They hit to start off the game. We didn’t have our bats in order.”

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The middle set of games were lopsided, but not uneventful. Ann-Marie Buchholz, of ABC Body Shop, was struck in her left eye by the ball while playing catcher. Buchholz was wearing eyeglasses with glass lenses, and SFD was called to treat her.

Her injuries included a concussion, two fractures in the area of her left eye socket, and she received stitches in two different places around her eye. She is recovering and visited a plastic surgeon on Tuesday, June 12, to determine if surgery is needed.

Red Rocks Rotary defeated ABC Body Shop 15-0 before taking on a Pagos team that was down one player.

Despite that, Pagos was up 2-0 in the early stages. Rotary came back to take a 3-2 lead and led 5-2 and 7-4 before almost giving up the game at the end.

Rotary came away 7-6 winners to improve to 3-0 on the season. Having no substitutes was a good thing in Rotary’s Nick Hastings’ opinion, given that it keeps everyone involved.

“They didn’t have a player, so that helped a bit,” Rotary’s Nick Hastings said. “We have really good pitching and our infield was solid. We just played solid team ball …. We hit really well tonight.”

Pagos fell to 1-1 despite scoring more runs than it had the week prior. It had trouble defensively, aside from the fact it only had a three-man outfield. Offensively it was swinging for the fences rather than trying to string together base hits.

“We had a lot of errors, including myself. It’s hard to win when you have double-digit errors,” Pagos’ Mauro Trahin Jr. said. “We were getting under the ball. A lot of us were trying to hit it out.”

Stringing together base knocks was what fueled Rough Country Pools & Spa’s 10-7 victory over the Dirty Rats in a back-and-forth game. Six straight singles in the top of the fifth inning flipped the scoreboard, giving Rough Country a 9-6 lead after being down 6-3.

Many of those hits, according to Anthony Franklin, came from players not known for hitting. From the other dugout came a lack of hitting by a team that had scored 17 runs in week one.

“Sometimes you can’t stop a rally, they were getting base hits and it’s hard to stop momentum it seems like,” Dirty Rats’ Chris Cordero said. “We need a little more discipline at the plate. The ball looks like a big balloon up there and everyone wants to hit it.”

Rough Country tacked on another run in the sixth, and a fielder’s choice RBI gave the Dirty Rats their seventh run, but it was too little too late.

However the Dirty Rats did go up 2-0 and 3-1 after the second inning. Errors on Rough Country’s part helped their opponent gain the upper hand, but then responded with two runs in the third to tie it at 3.

Two singles to start off the bottom of the third sparked a three-run response for the Dirty Rats. First it was Nathan Leake who sent a runner home, then Cesar Machado then Eric Dominguez, and they regained a 6-3 lead.

Shane Byrum, Rough Country’s pitcher, celebrated the win on his 48th birthday. The following day was teammate Anthony Franklin’s 38th.

“Playing softball alone on my birthday was enough,” Byrum said. “And getting the win was the icing on the cake.”

A player from Rough Country injured his knee on a collision at third base, and was forced to stop playing.

Reddell Construction picked up its first wins of the summer: 13-1 against Rough Country and 4-1 against the L’Auberge Mighty Ducks.

Against Rough Country, Reddell took a 5-0 lead with a streak of RBI hits that started with Larry Perry and ended with Mikey McKinnon in the second. Three innings later the advantage was 9-1.

“We hit the ball straight and we made plays on defense,” Reddell’s Shane Trimble said. “Shoutout to my mom for the support.”

Adult Summer Softball Standings — Week 2

Team Record Runs For Runs Against
A Day in the West 3-0 34 12
Red Rocks Rotary 3-0 28 9
Reddell Construction 2-2 25 23
Rokzoo Bucket List 1-1 21 13
Dirty Rats 1-2 24 24
Pagos 1-1 11 11
Rough Country Pools & Spa 1-2 15 25
L’Auberge Mighty Ducks 0-2 1 14
ABC Body Shop 0-2 0 28
Larson Newspapers

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