Seabridge sweeps 35-plus and Business

The name Seabridge was etched into local softball history this past weekend as two nights and four games of slow pitch softball at the Sports Complex in Oleai yielded Seabridge and Seabridge Islanders the titles of the Business and 35-and-over league, respectively.

The Business ballers had their chance to separate the champs from the chumps on Friday, July 16 when Seabridge and D&Q Spam laced up the cleats and oiled the gloves.

Game 1 was decided in the first inning and the first batter set the tone for the championship. Roy Celis cranked a homerun to lead off the game and that was all she wrote. The sea-going sluggers piled up 30 runs in the first two innings in contrast to the six by Spam.

Celis launched a grand slam later in the first and tacked on a third in the second while Nick Castro sent four balls over the fence. Seabridge spread another 15 runs over the next four innings to down D&Q 45-20.

Game 2 was a little closer to reality but the outcome was the same. There were eight lead changes in the contest but the most important for the Bridge crew came about in the sixth inning when they rallied for eight runs off of five homers and nine hits.

The mighty Spam added three runs in the top of the seventh but they just couldn’t close the gap as Seabridge won by a 28-25 score to take the championship.

The Seabridge Islanders and the Verizon Whatever matched up the following Monday on the same field in the finals of the 35-and-over league. The teams were evenly matched, but you couldn’t have guessed that from their records. Verizon finished the season with a record of 10-2 while the Islanders went 7-5.

Both teams played well-executed softball, but it was the ability of timely homerun hitting of Islanders’ left fielder Jeff Cabrera that made the difference. Cabrera smacked a pair of dingers, the last one was a three-run shot that gave his team the lead for good. The Islanders took Game 1 9-7 and a breather before returning for Game 2.

The second battle went back and forth like a yo-yo until the Islanders scored a deciding 14 runs in the fourth and fifth innings to put the game completely out of reach, almost.

The Whatever scored four in the fourth, three in the fifth, one in the sixth and three in the bottom of the seventh to narrow the gap to 20-21. They had the tying run on third and the go ahead on second but they couldn’t make it happen as the game ended on a grounder to short that was easily tossed to first.