Owen Bae, Sportsman of the Year, and Tom Kasunic, Most Improved Player. (Photo courtesy of Core Photography).
Larry Wolfe
League play wrapped up in late April with our annual end-of-seasons tournament, awards ceremony and social event. The tournament had a seeded single-game elimination format. An estimated crowd of 150 plus was on hand to cheer the teams on.
In the opening game, fifth-seeded West USA Realty (sponsored by Terry and Susan Young) beat the fourth-seeded Farmers Insurance team (sponsored by the Frank Margiotta Agency) by a score of 15-7. Steve Hilby led the winners by going three for three with a walk. Dan Bradfield also had three hits. John Whitman had three hits, including two doubles in a losing effort.
The sixth-seeded, but scrappy Wolfe & Associates squad surprised the number three-seeded State Farm team (sponsored by the Ralph Vasquez Agency) in a close one: 15-13. Manager Dave Rinaldo led the Wolfe Pack with four hits while Sam Giordano banged out four hits for the Insurers.
In game three, the number two seed, Mutual of Omaha, thumped the West USA Realtors 24-14. Lead-off man Bill Cheney, clean-up hitter Big Al Grefsheim, Mike Leverence and John Jay all had three hits for the winning Bankers. Billy Kee and Manager TJ Tjernlund had three hits each for the Realtors.
After a break for a ball park lunch of burgers, hot dogs and chips and the awards ceremony (see a separate article listing the winners), the underdog Wolfe Pack was nipped by the number one A-1 Golfers 10-8. Jim Dunn led the winners with three safeties while Mike Levine and Larry Maggerd had three each for the losers.
That set up a classic number one versus number two confrontation in the championship game. Number two Mutual of Omaha jumped out to an early 5-0 lead, but the A-1 Golfers stormed back to tie the game up 5-5 before piling on 14 runs to earn an eventual 19-10 victory. Dave Boone and Chuck Schaan led the way with three hits each for A-1 while none of the Bankers were able to connect for more than two safeties. Congratulations to Manager Gary Hillabolt and the entire A-1 team for a great season and tournament win.
Many thanks to Tournament and Event Coordinators Mike Core and Ken Brenden, master chefs Gary Alexander and Randy Rothenbuehler, servers Pat Wolfe, Cathy Doughman and Rhonda Myers, chief scorer and announcer extraordinaire Cyndy (no, it’s not misspelled) Hilby and all the volunteer umpires, scoreboard operators and the set-up crew.