Med Group One takes intramural softball championship

  • Published
  • By Dave Castilla
  • Intramural Sports director
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  Talk about déjà vu: the two teams that battled for softball supremacy in last year's championship was at it again. Except this time, it ended with different results as Med Group One upended their nemesis from last year, the Retirees, 28-20 to win the championship game.

The Retirees started the scoring in bottom of the first inning with five RBI runs. Joe Fuhrman drove in Rex Mitchell off a base hit. Wade Dolbow closed the scoring for the retirees with an RBI single.

Hospital 1 counter punched with six runs in the bottom of the first inning. With the bases loaded the retirees' shortstop threw an errant ball pass the second baseman and all three base runners scored. Later, Casey Berry double off the fence scoring Karvin Vega, and Mark Mckenzie drove in the final run with a single.

In the top of the second Fuhrman hit a two-run homerun over the left field fence regaining the lead for the retirees.

In the bottom of the second the medics put up an additional seven runs. The medics highlighted the inning with doubles by Heller and Fred Walker. The Heller and Walker doubles drove in three of the seven medic runs.

Hospital's lead was 13-8 after the first two innings of play and they would never lose the lead.

The retirees plated five more runs in the third as Richard Chavez doubled off the fence scoring Ebersole who had doubled and Fuhrman capped the inning with another 2 run shot.

The medics would not give in as they put six runs on the board in the bottom of the third.

The medics only managed three runs in bottom of the fourth. Home runs by James Heller and Walker made the score 22-16.

In the top of the fifth the retirees flexed their muscle as they hit 2 home runs; Ebersole hit a three-run shot to right center and a Chavez solo shot closed the gap to 22-20.

The medics scored six runs and put on a hitting clinic, with Bryan Kinder's two-run triple the big hit of the inning.

Each hit ran the clock farther and farther down, and the retirees couldn't get the third out. The medics, who had won the championship for six years in a row before getting dethroned, finally had the victory.

Medics Coach McKenzie said his team kept the pressure on. 

"We tried to score as many runs as possible because we know all the power they posses," he said.

Many of the players who played in the championship game will head to Peterson Air Force Base Sept. 12 for the Rocky Mountain Softball championship, which the Academy won in 2008.