Vienna American walks off with another win
By Jason Mackey
As Vienna American pitcher Tommy Doyle walked off the mound in the top of the fourth inning Monday, the Little League All-Stars had squandered a 4-1 lead from the first inning and found themselves deadlocked in a slugfest with their counterparts from Warwick.
Doyle “didn't have his best day,” according to Vienna coach Frank Williams, but it hardly mattered as Vienna American had reached the quarterfinals of the Majors state tournament by playing team baseball and nothing changed as Doyle exited the game.
Doyle's teammates offered words of encouragement, promising to pick up the pitcher and do their part to ensure that this summer dream doesn't end so soon.
They did.
Vienna American rallied from a three-run deficit in the bottom of the sixth inning to escape with an emotional 11-10 win, which brought with it a rematch against the District 10-champion SYA East team on Tuesday morning -- a game that SYA East won, 10-4, ending Vienna's season.
“From the beginning, when we first found out about the rosters -- we're all friends from the season -- we didn't get down on each other,” said Ben Socher, who relieved Doyle and picked up the pitching win. “That's just not tolerated.”
In that final inning, Socher got things started by battling through a 12-pitch at-bat. He eventually lined a one-out single to left, and after a walk to the next batter, Warwick's first baseman misplayed a double-play ball, throwing wide of second base and into left field.
At this point, with one run (10-8) across the plate and runners on second and third for No. 5 hitter Eric Alvarez, Vienna American was right where Williams thought his team could be.
“We got together going into the bottom of the last [inning], and said, 'Hey, the game's not over. We have the top of lineup up, we scored four runs in the first inning and we can do it again,'” Williams explained. “They just believe in themselves.”
That belief turned into reality as Alvarez blasted a double to tie the game, and when he rounded second and thought about third, a wild throw put him 60 feet away from a win.
Then, after a pitching change and a popout to shallow left field, a wild pitch scored Alvarez from third and Vienna American walked off much like it did to get here. In the District 4 title game, Socher scored from third on the same sort of play during the team's 11-10 win over McLean National.
“This was a team effort. We couldn't have done it without anyone else on the team,” said Evan Franke. “We all worked together. We never got down on ourselves. We always helped each other and picked ourselves up.”
In addition to picking up its fourth straight win in the state tournament, apparently the folks from Vienna have been picking up a few text messages and signs of encouragement as well.
A faithful following has made this daily trip to Bowling Green -- Vienna American has played once a day every day since last Thursday -- to show their support for the local youngsters. And for those who haven't made the trip, let's just hope that somebody is in somebody else's network.
“Text messaging is a wonderful technology,” Williams joked. “The text messages are off the chart. This team has done great and the Town of Vienna has been super with sticking behind us.”