AFOSI Gators win softball championship

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. John Jung
  • Headquarters Air Force Office of Special Investigations
Two old rivals met Sept. 3 to settle which team would be crowned the 2008 Andrews Air Force Base Intramural softball champion: The AFOSI Gators and 744th Communications Squadron. With the Gators coming out the loser's bracket in the double-elimination tournament, they needed two wins to take the trophy.

The familiar foes came full circle to face off at the championship series. The Gators and COMM met at the opening of the season with the Gators taking both games of a doubleheader. COMM vowed revenge and were eager win the championship at the expense of the hated Gators.

The Gators had other plans, taking the preliminary game 16-2 and then finishing the job with a 4-2 squeaker in the championship game, claiming the coveted trophy.

In the top of the first of the first game, the Gators jumped out to an early 2-0 lead off of a Jeff Dahlke homer to center field. The Gators tallied two more runs for a 4-0 lead before giving COMM a shot at bat in the opening stanza.

COMM drew blood in the person of their lead-off hitter, Jamelle Matthewson, who lined a shot into center field. Showing base-running savvy and speed, Mattewson scored an inside-the-park home run. Unfortunately for COMM that was all the fireworks they had.

Meanwhile the Gators piled on the runs as their bats came alive. Six Gators crossed home plate in the second and five more followed on in the third for a 15-1 lead at the end of the third inning.

In the remaining innings, both teams traded a run a piece for a final tally of 16-2 in the first game. With this win the Gators moved from the loser's bracket into the championship game.

Unlike the opening salvo, the championship game was more a duel of defense. 

"A hit here or there by one team or another could have changed the outcome of the championship," said Gators' head coach John Sullivan.

COMM manufactured a run in the top of the first when Timothy Kolnitys singled sharply to center and then took third base on an error by the Gators outfield. A sacrifice fly later, COMM scored their first run. The Gators defense clamped down and set down the next two batters and closed the top of the first down 1-0.

The Gators drew even in their half of the first when Kelly Luzum tripled into left-center field and then scored on a sac-fly as well. Three outs later the game was knotted at 1-1. 

Both teams went down without a peep in the second inning due to great fielding and defense, but somehow COMM managed to squeeze out another run in the top of the third to lead 2-1 before they took the to the field to defend their one run-lead.

In the Gators third, the eventual champs would take the lead for good by scoring two runs for a 3-2 lead. Two consecutive singles put men at first and second. The Gators' pitcher, Adam Engleman, sent a frozen rope double into left field scoring the base runners on first and second. His two RBI double would turn out to be the winning runs.

The fourth and fifth innings were scoreless with both defenses racking up double plays to silence the offense and the partisan crowds gathered to watch their teams.

The Gators hammered in the COMM coffin nail by picking up an insurance run in the sixth when Kelly Luzum smoked an RBI single into the outfield. At the close of the sixth inning the Gators led 4-2.

A two-out rally by COMM in the seventh was quickly extinguished by a pop fly to the infield ending the game and COMM's hopes of the crown. Final score Gators 4 COMM 2.