Nov. 4, 2007 — The St. Thomas 45-plus Hurricanes came up one game short of the 2007 Men’s Senior Baseball League (MSBL) tournament finals in Arizona when they lost a tough 6-3 semi-final game to the Fresno Phillies on Friday.
The Hurricanes, who had beaten the Phillies earlier in the week, again had them on the ropes, leading 3-0 behind a strong pitching effort from Kai Schjang and good defensive play.
The defense, however, came apart in the bottom of the fifth as three errors in the inning allowed the Phillies to score three unearned runs to tie the game after two outs. The Hurricanes would not score the rest of the way as the Phllies brought in their hard-throwing closer, lefty Paul Kapigian, who, in four innings of work, struck out 10 Hurricanes batters. Both Phillies pitchers combined to fan 17 Hurricanes over nine innings.
The Hurricanes plated one run in the top of the first on a sac fly off the bat of Glenn Francis to open the scoring. The Phillies failed to score in the bottom of the inning and would not get on the board until the bottom of the fifth, as Schjang was really pitching a gem.
After a scoreless second, the Hurricanes scored their final two runs of the game on a two-run single off the bat of Francis to extend their lead to 3-0.
The score would stay that way until the bottom of the fifth when the Phillies came up with the three unearned runs to knot the game at three.
The Phillies went ahead to stay in the bottom of the sixth, scoring one run on an RBI single off the bat of Richard Metzger.
They completed the scoring for the game by scoring their final two runs in the bottom of the seventh on RBI groundouts by Kapigian and James Ocarto.
Kapigian picked up the win in relief for the Phillies, while Schjang got the loss for the Hurricanes. Schjang also pitched the final five innings of the earlier game before coming back 30 minutes later to pitch a complete game against the Phillies for a total of 14 consecutive innings. Leading the Phillies hitting attack was Brad Mehlhoff (3 for 3), Nick Papagni (2 for 3), and Metzger (2 for 4 with one RBI). For the Hurricanes, Glenn Francis was 3 for 3 with three RBIs and Frankie Brathwaithe was 2 for 3.
The Hurricanes got to the semifinals by pounding the Indianapolis Blues, 18-8 earlier in the day. In that game they scored 18 runs on 22 hits, with Schjang blasting a two-run homerun.
All in all, of three different age groups that came to Arizona to represent St. Thomas and the Virgin islands, the 45-Plus Hurricanes had the best showing. They showed a lot of heart in playing through pain and injuries and coming back in games when all seemed lost. The Virgin Islanders came up just one game short, but were right there at the end.
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