G A M E 4
June 30 - Rival Queen Anne and Magnolia 11-year-old all-stars met Thursday night before last for local bragging rights and the opportunity to move on in the District 8 tournament. In a hard-fought battle, the QA stars came back from an early 2-0 deficit to beat Magnolia, 3-2.
Magnolia jumped out quickly with two runs in the top of the first, but starting QA flamethrower Joseph Jacobson settled down and got the clutch outs he needed as he and the QA defense left two Magnolia runners stranded in scoring position. The QA stars broke out their bats in the bottom of the first as Ben Tenenbom hit a one-out single. Blair Henning drilled a shot to third that the third basemen couldn't handle, putting runners at first and second. Glenn Zieve then blasted an RBI double to the right-center-field fence, scoring Tenenbom and moving Henning to third. Gavin Lewis followed with a walk, loading the bases, but the Magnolia defense stiffened to prevent any further runs from scoring.
In the top of the third, Magnolia mounted a threat again as they got runners to second and third bases with two outs. However, Jacobson showed his catlike reflexes in snaring a comebacker to the mound and calmly firing over to Henning at first to nip the batter and end the inning with no damage. In the bottom of the third the QA stars got the offense going again as Tenenbom led off with his second hit of the game. Austin Wells followed with a single, and Henning walked to load the bases with no outs. This brought Mr. Clutch, Zieve, to the plate, and he again delivered, this time with a drive to the left-center gap that plated both Tenen-bom and Wells and gave the QA stars the lead they would not relinquish: 3-2.
After the first inning Ja-cobson was absolutely dominant on the "hill," striking out 10 over five innings by keeping batters off balance with his blazing fastball and his deceptive change-up.
In the sixth, QA brought in their ace closer, Wells, to shut the door on Magnolia.
Zieve showed off his defensive prowess with a brilliant stop of a hard grounder to third base and alert throw to a covering Jake Hallgrimson at second to force the lead runner for the first out. Wells K'd the next batter for the second out as the huge throng of QA supporters roared in antici-pation.
The final Magnolia batter of the game launched a deep fly to center that proved to be no problem for gold-glover James Meyer, who made the catch look easy - and that ended the game.
The win was even more satisfying because the team achieved it with one of their key players, Keegan White, on the DL with severe flu symptoms.
Hitting stars for the game included Tenenbom with two, Zieve with the two clutch doubles and all three RBIs, Wells and Lewis each with a hit, and Sam Horowitz, who laid down a perfect base-hit bunt that would make Ichiro proud.
And on to Game 5....
-Submitted by Jeff Parkins
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