WPCNR PRESS BOX. By Fastpitch Johnny. August 27, 2006 UPDATED: The 2nd Place Connecticut Brakettes in their first year as members of the National Pro Fastpitch softball big league ripped into the Championship game Saturday night, dethroning defending Champion third Place Akron on Germaine Fairchild's humpback liner up the middle in extra innings.

Sarah Pauly strikes out Steph Pomes in the sixth with Iyhia McMichael on third with the score 0-0. McMichael had wheeled around second on a sacrifice bunt and beat the late throw by second baser Stephanie Best, to give the Racers a runner on third with less than 2 out. Paul reared back and fanned Kristen Butler and Pommes to prevent the go-aheader. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

"G's" smash scored Kellie Wilkerson from second with the winner in the 8th inning Saturday night, after Jessica Merchant's screamer down the first base line off reliefer Brandee McArthur moved Kellie to second backing up Sarah Pauly's 2-hit, 13 fans, pitching that handcuffed the vaunted Akron Racer lineup. The Racers only had one serious threat in the 6th.  Long Tall Pauly, voted Pitcher of the Year in the NPF, showed why. She fanned 13 Racers, walked 1.

The Riptide's Jocelyn Forrest pitching out of a jam in the fifth inning of the opening nailbiter with the Chicago Bandits. Chicago's Amanda Williams is on second, MacKenzie Vandergeest is on first. On the next pitch, Riptide catcher KJ Kelly noticed Williams had broken too far off second picked her off, with The Spiderwoman, the Tide's  and Bay Shore NY's own Jackie Pasquerella making a diving parallel-to-the-ground  tagout of Williams to wrap up the rundown and kill the threat. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

In the opener of the day-night 2006 NPF Playoffs and Championship, the "Towheaded Tornado," Jocelyn Forrest, know to her teammates as "JFo" threw 102 pitches with 7 Ks over 9 innings with One Walk to whitewash the First Place Chicago Bandits, 1-0 and beat the crafty cool righty, Gina Oaks whom the Riptide could not touch up. 

The Riptide winner came in the bottom of the ninth when Lyndsey Angus singled to the left of second base to lead off.  KJ Kelly bunted on Oaks' first pitch, Bandit first baser Nicole Trimboli in on the bunt threw sidearm low and to the right of the frantically reaching Laura Harms at second and it went off Harms glove into centerfield.  Lyndsey Angus jumped up and started digging, flew freewheeling around third to beat centerfielder Amanda Williams' throw.  Williams' throw was up the third base line behind the runner for the Bandit Breaker. Catcher Selena Collins had to come up the line, took the throw standing up swiped at Angus who was already by her and got nothing but air, and the Bandits were beaten. Angus' dash was reminiscent of Enos Slaughter's dash from first on a single in the 1946 World Series. It seemed impossible, but it unfolded to New England's delight.

Williams, the centerfielder appeared to be a little too deep and late on the backup of the sacrifice  at second and it cost the first place Bandits the winning run.  Racer defense on the sacrifice bunt had twice nabbed Riptide runners at second on the front end of a bunt, but the third time Angus was just a little faster and Trimboli perhaps was too greedy instead of going for the sure out at first. But that's ball -- it is easy to second guess.

Sharon Drysdale, Riptide coach told WPCNR she was sending Angus all the way, "never hesitated," Drysdale said.

Fairchild misses two attempts to bunt in the nightcap, then wins it.

In the Brakette winning rally, the Racers had brought in Brandee McArthur in relief of the Redoubtabe Radara McHugh who had thrown 94 pitches. McArthur walked the first batter to face her, Kellie Wilkerson on 4 pitches. Then Brakette manager John Stratton had the league's leading homerun leader, Michigan's Jess Merchant bunt twice. Twice she missed McArthur on a 1-2 went for the outside corner and Merchant hit a frozen rope off the glove tip of first baser Trimboli down the rightfield line for a single. Runners on first and second, nobody out.

"G" delivers the winner on Saturday night. Photo, WPCNR Sports

Again Stratton had Germaine Fairchild up to bunt. G took a ball, then missed two attempts to bunt the runners over. On the 1-2, she extended her sweet swing  for the outside pitch and got it She told WPCNR, "I think she (McArthur) was trying to go up and out on me...it had a little curve spin, a little under it. I just said you know what,  make sure you stay on top of this and keep your hands high and it worked out."

Sarah Pauly in the circle Saturday night. Asked how she and Callie Piper were handling Caitlin Benyi and Steph Pomes with Iyhia McMichael on third, Pauly told WPCNR, "We just made sure we stuck together and threw our game. Just had to have the mentality that no one could score, because we wanted to win." Asked what she was trying to do with hitters in the McMichael squeeze situation, Pauly said, "Strike 'em out. Of course, try not to pitch anything close to the zone to where they could even touch it. Just throw strikes. Towards the end of the game we found out where the umpire's zone was so we were working with that to our advantage." She said her change up was working well. Photo, WPNCR Sports.

New England's Saturday Heroines: "JFo"Jocelyn Forrest, left, the Little Riptide righty, the Bobby Schantz of softball,  and Lyndsey Angus who singled and scored all the way from first on a botched sacrifice bunt in the 9th, to beat the first place finishers, the Chicago Bandits in the NPF playoffs. Forest threw 102 pitches over the full nine and pitched out of three winning run on second situations with 1 out.  Who is Johnny Damain anyway? Photo, WPCNR Sports.

"JFo" told WPCNR, "Probably this is our best game all the way around. The whole team, top to bottom, this is the best game we've played all year. We knew coming in these games were going to be real tough battles between pitchers and we were just going to  have to shut them down long enough for us to score a run."

WPCNR asked The Towheaded Tornado if she did anything different Saturday against Chicago:

"I  made sure to take a lot of time inbetween pitches and really, really take a deep breath and make every pitch count. Because that's what's so important. Every once in a while you get in a groove and you just kind of get comfortable and you start going too fast, and you'll slip a pitch in there and that's when it bites you in the butt."

JFo's most nervous moment came in the top of the eighth. Mackenzie Vandergeest had singled and stolen second. On a 3-2 pitch to Laura Harms she slipped a pitch over the outside corner and the plate umpire punched her out. Harms leaped in the air, threw her helmet to the bench. She could believe it. Then Ann Steffan a .400 hitter was up, who gets most of her hits on slaps over the thirdbase side. She attempted to slap JFo three times and three times she missed.

WPCNR asked what were her best pitches: "I think the thing that made me effective was I was able to go to everything. Obviously my bread-and-butter is the rise and the change, but I could rely on my drop ball when I needed to it was curving a lot and was able to go to my screwball when I needed to. That's really important against a team that hits this well. You have to have a variety of things to go to, because if you go to the well, they'll eventually catch on."

She said she and her catcher KJ Kelly keep track of what pitches they get hitters out on, and do not go back to the same pitch that worked before. "We keep track of that," she said.

Angus who singled to start the Bandit demise, described her dash to the plate as the throw was coming in from center: "The ball skipped. The catcher (Collins) tried to cut off the ball, so I went inside as soon as I saw the ball cross behind me, I just slid around. I was way safe. She never came close. That's how it worked."

Lyndsey said Oaks, who pitched a fabulous game, too, had plenty left at the end. "I got a good pitch to hit. It was a changeup she hadn't really thrown me yet."

Manager Drysdale, commenting on Angus's dash said it appeared that centerfielder Amanda Williams made an off-balance throw, about as well as she could under the circumstances because the ball did not go straight into centerfield but was deflected. She thought it was a good throw under the circumstances.

The two crisp, good-as-it-gets-games set up a New England-Connecticut clash for the NPF Championship Sunday night at 6 at Frank DeLuca Field in Stratford. (Exit 30 off I-95 --not a bad seat in the house). For more, go to www.ctbrakettes.com