Christ Church Drops Three

Two weeks after moving into first place and a week after being swept by Immanuel UCC, Christ Church dropped all three last night to league leader St. Matthews Baptist.

In Game One through eight innings, Christ Church could manage only four singles (by David Stierle in the second inning, by Mike Peak in the fourth, by Jerry Hinton in the sixth and by David in the seventh) while St. Matthews Baptist was scoring on a two run home run in the first and solo homers in the fourth and seventh for a 4-0 lead.  In the bottom of the ninth, Mike P. led off with a single.  After an out, he was joined on base by David and Dick Lutz.  With two outs and two strikes Paul Hirsbrunner hit a grand slam home run to tie the game.  But in the tenth a St. Matthews Baptist home run gave St. Matthews a 5-4 lead and in the bottom of the inning, Jerry's one out single was wasted as St. Matthews won Game One.

In Game Two, Christ Church took their first lead in our last 37 innings in the first inning.  Jerry singled and scored on David's triple. St. Matthews tied it up immediately with a lead-off home run (no. 1 for the game).  Christ Church regained the lead 4-1 in the bottom of the second.  Bob Stone homered.  Paul singled and scored on a triple by Kay Peak and she scored on Jerry's single.  Lead off home runs by St.  Matthews in the third (no. 2) and the fifth (no. 3) made the score 4-3.  Mike Thompson got one run back with a home run in the fifth.  But a home run in the seventh (no. 4) and three homers in the eight (Nos. 5, 6 and 7) and a home run in the ninth (no. 8) put Christ Church down 8-5.  In the ninth with one out, Jerry singled.  With two outs, Mike T. singled, David tripled to cut the lead to 8-7, and Dick tied the game with a single.  But in the tenth St. Matthews NINTH HOME RUN OF THE GAME clinched the series for St. Matthews.   Christ Church also added hits from David (third inning single), Terry Waddle (sixth inning double), Mike P. (seventh inning single) and Paul (eighth inning single).

As in Game One, in game Three, Christ Church was again scoreless through eight innings.  Jerry singled in the first, Dick singled in the second, and David tripled in the fourth and singled in the seventh.  St. Matthews scored one in the third and one in the sixth for a 2-0 lead.  In the bottom of the ninth Mike P. singled, mike T. had an RBI triple and David singled to tie the score.  Neither team scored in the tenth (a two out double by Jerry was wasted).  In the eleventh, St. Matthews scored twice and completed the sweep with a 4-2 win.

For the night, Christ Church out hit St. Matthews 32  to 28, but St. Matthews' 14  home runs to Christ Church's 3 was the difference.  That and a lack of "timely" hits.  In Game One Christ Church had 16 at bats with men on and failed to drive in a run 15 times- the sole exception being Paul's grand slam.  In Game Two Christ Church had 21 at bats with men on and failed to score 15 times.  In Game Three Christ Church had 17 at bats with men on and failed to plate a run another 15 time. 

Next week Christ Church plays St. Matthews UMC AT CHRIST CHURCH .