by Embrach Mustangs
The Embrach Mustangs with their backs against the wall managed to sweep the Therwil Flyers and move on to face the Bern Cardinals in the final round. The Flyers had a 2-1 game advantage in the best of five matchup and looked to close out the Mustangs with a win.
On Saturday, the Mustangs managed to squeak out a 1-0 victory in an extraordinary pitching duel between the Mustangs Tim Jones and the Flyers Josh Tamba. Both pitchers were dealing with their best stuff. Tamba brought a no hitter into the seventh inning but a broken bat single by Christian Klarer along with a sac bunt from Bruno Albrecht set the stage for a Tim Jones base hit to score the winning run and even the series at two games apiece.
On Sunday, it was again another pitcher’s duel with veteran Roger Savoldelli of the Mustangs facing Lukas Croton of the Flyers. Croton already had two wins under his hat against the Mustangs. However, it was Savoldelli who prevailed in a very dramatic fashion 4-3 to take the series three games to two.
The Mustangs opened the scoring in the first inning pushing a run across when leadoff man Harry Wischnewski singled was bunted over to second by Bruno Albrecht and moved to third base with an infield out by Josh Crouse. With two outs and runner on third Christian Klarer hit a ground ball to third base which was mishandled and the Mustangs took the lead 1-0.
The Flyers came right back in the bottom of the third inning by scoring two runs to take a 2-1 lead. Josh Tamba led off and smoked a line drive for a hit and Hide Oshima doubled to score Tamba. A base hit by Sven Leeman and a walk loaded the bases and Stephan Koller hit a high chop to first base to score the second run.
The Mustangs scored one more in the top of the fifth when Tommy Fasching was hit by pitch and moved to second on a hit run play by Chris Byrnes and then scored when the Flyers could not handle Ollie Walser’s grounder cleanly.
The score remained 2-2 until the bottom of the seventh when the Flyers scored a run on passed ball to go ahead 3-2.
The Mustangs fought back in the top of the 8th inning with one out Christian Klarer walked and moved to second base on a wild pitch. The next batter Tim Jones answered with a single to right field putting the tying run on third base with one out. Jones stole second base on the next pitch. Tommy Fasching delivered a key hit to right field to score Klarer from third base and tie the score at 3-3. With one out and runners on 1st and 3rd Chris Byrnes stepped to the plate and delivered a lined single between 3rd base and shortstop to push the eventual winning run across for the Mustangs.
The excitement and drama was not over as the Flyers loaded the bases with one out in the ninth inning. Roger Savoldelli who pitched brilliant the entire game went to 3-0 count on the next batter before battling back to strike him out for the second out of the inning. The next batter struck out swinging and the Mustangs moved on to the finals for the first time in the franchises 25 year history.