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Show Page 6 OREM GENEVA TIMES Thursday, July 20, 2006 0 H f j , PEOPLE A (J D OUTDOOR FUN OREM OWLZ Brewers' generosity costly as Owlz take pair of games Brian Hassler Liti -u.iini- Ihtok s weren't neces-i; neces-i; . lot tin jm M 1 kst Sutur-U Sutur-U i.ivi a-, tin- Helena Brewers i . . 1 1 ir a i aUthe help in the 'A inli- iik a. 1 still sirujjgled to i-t.-t :! I-. ut the ball, the Brew-i Brew-i r .' i :-i up .'j bulM ol rut bats- i i i oi s and Vv alks to allow the ' M !ioi ia -.1 !o a 7-3 VKlfjry as the hp .'.' . hit live bailers, allowed lour 't i oi -, and v.alkr-d five more 111 1 be los I i 1' i.a v. In.) leads tlie honer I k .: hit batsmen. tagged i )': 'in is IVttit tluee tunes during dur-ing i !k game. Tin- three times made Ivtit i hi league leader in being hit b jio iiev bui it was a two-run ioubie in tin-thud inning by Pettit Uiai ;',oi lb' 'Ml, oil toa strong stall After another (M l Ijatler was hit Ir. a pin htoo.ien up tlie third inning in-ning (villi followed with a two-run di iuble to push the Avl ahead -Ui IM Phillips kept 1 lie (Ml ollen.se on the held with a run scoring lut ol his aw n to give ( )rem an earlv Ullead "IIkii a ete two runs that we scored on our own early on," said (Aem coach Tom Kotcliman. "Air guys had two strikes on those plays and instead of striking out like they have before during the season, they got hits." Tlx; Brewers weren't done helping help-ing out the AvI in tlie bottom of tlie f lit h inning as two more runs were put on tlie loard by Orem while tlie (A lz failed to register a single base lut. giving the Cwlz a 'j-0 'j-0 lead heading into the sixth inning After spending five innings helping help-ing out tlie M'lz. Helena finally helped itself in tlie top of the sixth inning as Taylor ireen got things stalled with a single and was bi ought liome on a two-run home . run by Steplien Chapman, cutting Clem's lead to 0-2. But a running catch by Orem s Luis Rivera on a deep Andy liouc lue fly ball kepi tlie Brewers I rom maintaining tlie growing momentum and allowed (rem to escape ihe inning having allowed only two runs. "Rivera makes lhat cat eh and that's big." said Kotchman. "(J elipe) Arredondo wasn't as sharp as before be-fore but I was happy that we had a " V 4 X i4 y u Orem, Missoula split pair in close contests JEREMY HARMONNorth County Orem's P.J. Phillips throws to first for un out us the See HELENA. Page 7 Owlz fuve the Osprey on July 10. Jared Lloyd DAILY HtKAI Ij Athletes at the top of their game make things look easy. Basketball players seem to barely jump, but they have plenty of hang time to put down the dunk. Tennis players appear to always al-ways be in the right spot. Rurining backs in football look like they're jogging but run away from defenders. de-fenders. Orem saw a classic baseball example in the top of the second inning of last Wednesday's game against Missoula at Owlz Stadium. Sta-dium. Osprey first baseman Jose Dijol caught hold of a pitch and blasted it far over the left-field fence for a three-run homer. The home team then tried a bit too hard to duplicate the feat, striking out 14 times as Missoula escaped with the 54 win. "We've had trouble swinging the bat all year, but their starting pitcher might've been the best we've seen all year," Orem manager man-ager Tom Kotchman said. "That was good stuff we faced." Much of the credit for the Owlz's offensive woes had to go to Osprey starting pitcher Anthony Barnette, who went seven innings, allowing five hits, one earned run and striking out 11. "It feels pretty good (to strike out 11 batters)," Barnette said. "My last outing wasn't too hot, but tonight I just went out there and pitched like I knew I could." After Dijol's four-bagger, Orem settled down and kept the visitors visi-tors from pulling away. Missoula scored a run in the third and another an-other in the top of the eighth. The Owlz finally broke through in the sixth, when first baseman Brooks Shankle hit a double, then came in on second baseman Tadd Brewer's triple to left-center field. The most excitement for the Orem fans came in the eighth, when a walk set the stage for shortstop Ryan Mount. He finally got that pitch the entire team had been looking for, launching it out of the ballpark to for a two-run bomb. The home squad made things interesting in the ninth, scoring a run and putting the tying run at second base with one out, but a pair of strikeouts ended the contest. con-test. See MISSOULA, Page 7 UTAH COUNTY SPORTS Fi tl '' ' ' "V V''""is4J ' u Sn.-""' - ----- 'I' - iw(fimfm : '''iM Jimmy OeGraffenried hits a wiffle ball while giving a wiffle ball demonstration at Hillmun Fields in Payson on Friday morning. MATT SMITHNO County Fast pitch tournaments helping wiffle ball gain popularity in Utah County Neil K. Warner Roh Hertler. LHah Regional Direct ot lor I asl Plastic Wiffle ball. sa v this is it. Salurday, .kih t lie last chance teams in the Utah region have 1oquali! lot the playolfs and have theti airfare paid to participate par-ticipate in the national lourna-rrient lourna-rrient in 'I eas. What'-' Someone is holding a wiffle ball tout namenl for a chance to qualify to play m the wiffle ball World Series '' Sur e, where hi e ou been? Willie ball iv not just your backyard sport anymore. If vou thought v if fie ball was onl' played at the park as a part of picnic activity, you're old school. ( jone ar e those skinny yellow yel-low bats that come in a package pack-age t hat includes a ball. It has been replaced with the high tech models. There is the Loco bat . a plasl ic bat w it h a wood handle that sells for about $35, or there is the exclusive Moon-shut Moon-shut bat, a composite type of plastic bat that is the lieMarini if wiffle bail bats that retails for over $100. Wiffle ball is going big-time. There have already been three wiffle ball tournaments in Pi ovo this year and those tournaments tour-naments drew players from as far aw ay as Arizona, Colorado and Idaho. "A couple of years ago 0 If We've taken big strides this year. We went from four teams in our first tournament tourna-ment this year to 1 1 teams in June." Rob Hertzler ;'AH REGIOM.L DIRECTOR f OR f,T PLASTIC WiFFLE CALL a friend of mine told me he played in a tourney tn California Cali-fornia J thought that was the coolest thing, so I started researching re-searching organized wiffle ball on the internet." Hertzler said "I found a lot of organizations, organiza-tions, but f ast Plastic's rules and way they did things attracted at-tracted me the most, and they were soliciting new regions. " 1 expressed interest in doing it here two years ago but was declined." What, you have to have a college degree to be the director? direc-tor? Hertzler persisted and finally final-ly got the job. There are now a toty of 19 regions around the country. Every region plays tournaments through the spring and summer, with the top two teams from each region re-gion qualifying for the national cha-npionships in Oct ober that take place in Texas. "We've taken big strides this year. We went from four teams in our first tournament this year to 1 1 teams in June," Hertzler explained. "Last week we had a tout nament in Layton and I had a guy see us playing and he stopped by to watch. After he watched the tournament tourna-ment for a while and found out what it was all about, he said he would have a team in our next tournament Wiffle ball seems to mean something different to every-, one who plays it, but it has enough common threads to strtcto a bond that can be linked across age barriers. "In 1989, 1 saw a magazine article about a guy who had a wiffle bafl field that was a replica rep-lica of Fenway Park," Hertzler said. Tve never forgotten that. I was impressed that someone would go to such lengths for a whiffle ball field See WIFFLE BALL, Page 7 (POOR |