First Day of Playoffs Leaves Four Even Battles Oct 10, 1997
Chicago (AP)--The first ever PVBL playoffs began today with 4 thrilling
doubleheaders. Punxatawney played at Chicago and Vero visited Phoenix in
the Defiant League while the Enterprise League featured Galena playing in
Brooklyn and Motor City at Hartford.
However, at the end of the day, all eight combatants found themselves with
what comes down to a 3 games series as all of the doubleheaders were split.
Game 1 was very crucial for Punxatawney as they would have to beat Bobby
Witt who has only lost 1 game all season. Jon Lieber faced him in a battle
of top of the DL's top pitchers. In this first game, the Groundhogs jumped
out to a 2-0 lead in the 2nd inning and went on to take an 8-0 lead,
allowing just 3 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning and winning 8-3. Jon
Lieber was far better than Bobby Witt as well. A comparison of their lines:
IP H R ER BB K
Lieber 7.0 4 0 0 3 6
Witt 7.1 12 7 7 2 6
The offense was a team effort with all of the Hogs collected at least 1 hit.
Greg Myers and Tony Batista, who eached homered in the win, drove in 5 of
the team's 8 runs and combined to go 4-9. Cordova and Klesko each had 2
hits as well. Mark Parent's 3 run blast in the 9th accounted for all of the
South Siders offense.
Although a jubilant Hogs team left the field after game 1, many of the press
were perplexed to see Dustin Hermanson as the slated starter for game 2.
This game was nearly a major milestone in PVBL history. Chicago won 4-0 and
gave up just 1 single hit, a Jose Valentin single. Juan Gonzalez, with a
triple and a homer, was the main contributor to the South Siders offense.
Hermanson had an average outing, going 5 innings while allowing 3 runs and
Sean Bergman had 3 more solid frames in relief. However, Paul Wagner
outmatched everyone with an 8 inning, 1 hit, 2 walk, 6 strikeout
performance. Bill Drahman had a perfect frame of relief to finish the game.
"You can second guess me all you want, but the numbers are there. Chicago
hits lefties a lot better than they hit righties. 20 points or so. I
thought that if we could win the first 2 behind Jon and Dustin, we'd be set.
But it doesn't matter at all what Dustin did today--we only got 1 single hit
in this game," said team owner and manager Dan Shapiro.
Now Punxatawney, without star pitcher Bobby Thomas, is forced to go to a
lefty for game 3. Mike Hampton, who has been on and off over the last few
weeks of the season, will probably be the starter of game 3. The game 4
starter is undecided but it will probably swing on the result of game 3.
"We're confident we can beat Chicago. They're a hot team with a hot
pitching staff, but we've been good all year. Maybe we can even put it away
tomorrow," Shapiro concluded.
