Saturday, July 21, 2007

'Rakers race into playoffs, suffer first-round setback

CONCORD -- Apparently a quirk of the schedule is the only thing that can keep a good Muckrakers team down. Playing on their familiar and friendly Thursday night, the 'Rakers closed out the regular season with an 18-17 nipping of the Benchwarmers. The Muckrakers could have mailed this one in, but no, they gave it their best shot. Now that's integrity.

The 'Rakers were informed they'd clinched the playoffs even before the game started. Overjoyed by the news, the team stormed out to a nine-run first, and were ahead 12-0 after one-and-a-half frames. The Benchwarmers proved to be able foes, coming back to make a ballgame of it, but they were losers nonetheless as the Rakers roared to their third win in a row and fourth of their past five adventures.

Unfortunately, mustering a Saturday morning quorum for the first round of the playoffs proved to be a difficult undertaking. Going with only eight players, the undermanned 'Rakers fought gamely but fell to Crossroads 11-4.

That set up a second playoff game on Saturday, set for 7:30 p.m. on Field 4. At press time it was going to be difficult to field a team for this one, so all Muckrakers are advised to show up if they possibly can.

After all, it's the playoffs, and anything can happen.

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