Complete Effort Gives Diamonds 2-0 Lead

The York Diamonds played their best game of the season, using great defense and strong pitching to defeat the Toronto Cardinals 5-1 at 9th Line Park last night.

Rob Hofstetter threw one of his best games of the season, despite not having his best stuff. Hofstetter used key defensive plays by Rudy Naraine, Neil Parekh, Greg Shannon, Don Cantwell, Jeff Hofstetter, and Eric Foley to his full advantage and only allowed one run in his 5 innings of work. Victor Medina came on in the sixth and twirled a shutout 4 innings to earn his second win of the season. Trung Duong pitched 7 strong innings for the Cardinals.

After York squandered a bases loaded nobody out scenario in the first inning, the Diamonds came back with a nifty Naraine-Parekh-Foley double play in the bottom of the first. The Cardinals broke on top in the third after Cedric Grin singled and scored on a Ray Victorino single. York tied it 1-1 in the fifth on a Neil Parekh single and a ringing Don Cantwell double. The 1-1 tie lasted until the 7th when Rudy Naraine walked, stole second and scored on a Rob Hofstetter base hit. In the eighth, Duong was replaced by Marcus Belardi, who walked Medina and Rob Fraser, and gave up a bloop single to Naraine, before back-to-back sacrifice flies by Parekh and Cantwell made it 4-1. In the ninth Mike Rochon came on and allowed a Medina RBI single.

Hitting leaders for York were Naraine, Cantwell, and the resurgent Greg Shannon who all had 2 hits apiece and leadoff man Rob Fraser who had a single and 4 walks. The MSBL's leading hitter, Steve Correia was 2-5 for the Cardinals.

Manager Paul Freeman thanked Mrs. Service for her scorekeeping work and then turned the postgame press duties over to scrappy sparkplug centrefielder Rob "Grizz" Fraser who had these comments, "That might have been the best all-around game we have played in years, we left a lot of guys on base early but had a lot of clutch at bats late. The infield defense was awesome tonight, Greg came up huge at third and Rudy was solid and Neil and Eric made some great plays. Our pitchers battled their asses off, Rob kept us in the game and Vic continues to be a great surprise. If only I could get my bunts down it would have been a pefect night. It was also good to see Jeff Hofstetter back out there after his injury. All in all, it looks like things are coming together for us, but we know this series is far from over and we will come out ready to roll on Thursday."

Date: August 22, 2004     Time: 6:00pm      Venue: 9th Line