Christ Church Eliminated From Title Contention

Needing to win two games to maintain a mathematical chance of earning a share of the championship, Christ Church was swept by visiting Harvey Browne Monday night.

In Game One Christ Church had three one-out singles (by Mike Peak in the first, Paul Hirsbrunner in the second and Mike Thompson in the sixth) and three no-out singles (by Mike T in the fourth, Paul in the seventh and David Stierle in the ninth).  But with fifteen chances to get the triple that would produce a run, the triple did not come and Christ Church's only run and only other hit was a home run by Frank Preston in the fifth.  A pair of home runs in the second and another in the fourth gave Harvey Browne the 3-1 win.

There was better production in Game Two.  After Dick Lutz's one out single in the second and Jerry Hinton's two out double in the third failed to produce a run, the fourth saw Christ Church take their first lead of the night.  Mike T led off with a double and scored on David's triple.  One out later Paul singled for the second run and a 2-0 lead.  After a Harvey Browne Home run in the seventh, Christ Church stretched the lead in the seventh.  With one out Terry Waddle led off with an error and scored on Bob Stone's triple.  One out later Jerry drove in Bob and Christ Church led by four.  But in the eighth, Harvey Browne erupted.  A single, triple and home run scored three and a single and triple plated a fourth run to give Harvey Browne a 5-4 lead.  In the bottom of the eighth, with one out David tripled but was left stranded.  With one more chance in the ninth, Terry led off with a triple but three more shots at driving in the tying run all failed and Christ Church dropped Game Two.

Game Three saw only two Christ Church batters reach base.  In the sixth Mike T led off with a double and in the eighth Charles Smith reached on an error.  Harvey Browne managed just six hits but two of those were home runs and Harvey Browne completed the sweep with a 2-0 victory.