by Chris Byrnes, Embrach Mustangs
The Embrach Mustangs opened their best of five playoff against the Therwil Flyers with two wins. The Mustangs travelled to Therwil on Saturday and prevailed in a thrilling game which was won in extra innings 5-3. The Mustangs received a solid pitching performance from starter Roger Savoldelli and relief pitcher Christian Klarer and clutch hitting from Bruno Albrecht, Josh Crouse and Tim Jones.
The Mustangs opened the scoring in the first inning when Harry Wischnewski walked, stole second and was moved to third on a ground out to second base. With a runner on third base and one out Tim Jones hit a ground ball to right side and Wischnewski scored the first run of the game. The Mustangs added another run in the third inning when Ollie Walser reached first base on an error, was moved to second base on a sac bunt by Wischnewski and scored on a ground ball up the middle by Josh Crouse to make it a 2-0 ball game.
The Flyers were able to get on the board in the bottom of the fifth when Emanuel Raouzeos reached first base on an error and advanced to second on a passed ball. Sebastian Zwyer then laid down a sac bunt to advance Raouzeos to third base with one out. Reto Siegel then singled to score Raouzeos to make the score 2-1.
The Mustangs added another run in the top of the ninth when Tim Jones led off with a double and scored on a Bruno Albrecht single to make it 3-1 going into the bottom of the ninth inning. The Flyers battled back and had runner on second base with two outs when Ianis Bouteloup singled to put runners on the corners. A passed ball allowed Bouteloup to advance to second base. Reto Siegel then singled up the middle to score two runs tying the game at 3 apiece.
In extra innings the Mustangs Josh Crouse hit a double off the fence and then Tim Jones hit a double of relief pitcher Adrian Kaufmann to score the go ahead run. Christian Klarer then hit a slow roller to third base and the throw was off line scoring Jones to make the score 5-3. Christian Klarer who came in to pitch in the seventh inning when starter Roger Savodelli injured himself shut the flyers down in the tenth inning to record his first playoff win.
On Sunday the Flyers travelled to Embrach for the rematch. The Mustangs again played solid baseball and Tim Jones was absolutely dominate with 15 strike outs to gain his first playoff win. The Mustangs jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the 3rd inning. Flyer pitcher Hide Oshima walked the first two batters Wischneski and Crouse. A perfectly executed double steal put runners on second and third with no outs. Jones stepped to the plate and had an RBI ground out to score Wischnewski and then Klarer singled up the middle to score Crouse.
The Mustangs broke open the game in the bottom of the forth inning scoring three runs to make it 5-0. Tommy Fasching reached first base on an error and Chris Byrnes then recorded a bunt single placing runners at first and second with no outs. The next batter Carl Hutchinson placed a sac bunt to advance the runners. The Flyers then switched pitchers and gave the ball to Chris Blackbee. Ollie Walser came through with a clutch single to score Fasching and Crouse hit a long double to clear the bases. That is all Tim Jones needed and the Mustangs won 5-1.