Celebration

At the start of Monday's membership meeting, coach Jonathan Salant and players Mike Diegel and Sarahanne Driggs presented the divisional trophy to NPC President Donna Leinwand. They also gave her a team-autographed softball, to twin with the one now on display in the club's library. The team will get together one last time at the club to toast the successful season and make plans to improve on it next year.

Outfielders Mike Young (left) and Staci Maiers (right) converge on a fly ball in Saturday's playoffs. After Young called for it, Maiers slid out of the way to avoid a collision. Second basewoman Sarahanne Driggs (9) looks on with relief. (Photos by Mike Diegel.)

0 comments - Posted by Jonathan D. Salant at 1:03 PM - Categories:

2-2

Ryan Donmoyer pitched 3 1/2 games on Saturday. (Photo by Mike Diegel)

The MMSL Web site's playoff preview indicated that the National Press Club could be the high seed that would be out early, and while Big Blue did lose its first game, it won two games thereafter and was just one game away from reaching Sunday before falling to AOL. In fact, NPC was the last team eliminated on Saturday, and by the time the squad got to Ledo’s, only the Gazette and AOL, both of which advanced to Sunday, were there with Big Blue.

In game 1, the Gazette, which had lost both regular season games to Big Blue, scored nine runs in the fourth inning en route to a 14-9 win. NPC had a 3-2 lead with two outs in the fourth after a double play, but the Green Machine scored eight two-out runs. The Press Club made it close with five runs in the last of the seventh. Mike Diegel and Chris Morin, the 1-2 batters, went 5-for-8, while Mike Young hit two doubles and Jon Allen drove in two runs on sacrifice flies.

After that final inning, Big Blue kept its hitting shoes on for game two, scoring two runs in the last of the first inning, two runs apiece in the fourth and sixth innings and then six runs in the last of the sixth inning to defeat Discovery, 12-6. Again, Diegel and Morin were the table-setters, going 4-for-6, while Frank Fuhrig and Sarahanne Driggs both tripled to deep left field.

In game 3, injuries and departures shortened the NPC roster, but Big Blue had enough to prevail. After the Washington Post scored two runs in the top of the first, the Press Club answered with six in the bottom of the first, batting all 11 in the first inning. The Post scored four in the top of the second; Big Blue responded with two in the bottom of the inning. The Post then scored three more runs in the top of the third. Then its bats went cold and Big Blue scored a run in the fourth to tie and a run in the fifth that proved decisive in a 10-9 victory. Diegel, Fuhrig, Domen, Staci Maiers, and Jonathan Salant each had two hits, and Bill Holland took a key walk with two outs and a woman behind him to force in what proved to be the winning run. The game ended when a Post runner strayed too far off second base on a hit and NPC cut him down.

That left just one more game, and if the Press Club could win, it would return on Sunday. Alas, the opponents were AOL, the only team all season that had beaten Big Blue by more than two runs. With more than half the roster playing their fourth game of the day and the remaining players in their third game, NPC just ran out of gas. As the visiting team for the first time in the playoffs, NPC scored two runs in the top of the first on a two-out double by Driggs, but AOL answered with four in the bottom of the first and four in the second. Big Blue made it closer with three runs in the third, but the Press Club never scored again as AOL rolled to a 25-5 win, called after five innings.

For the Press Club, the two wins matched its total playoff victories in its 18 previous seasons combined, but NPC fell short of making it to Sunday for the first time ever.

A fourth seed has never won the MMSL championship, and the National Press Club failed to break the streak. But NPC did win its second Layhill Division championship in four years, and third overall, with Rob Terry presenting the trophy and T-shirts before the first game.

Scenes from the playoffs: Second basewoman Sarahanne Driggs(above) tries to complete a double play at first base as shortstop Jon Allen looks on. Below, center fielder Chris Morin gets the ball back into the infield. That's coach-first baseman Jonathan Salant in the foreground. (Photos by Mike Diegel.)

0 comments - Posted by Jonathan D. Salant at 1:07 PM - Categories:

Playoff Preview

The National Press Club softball team finds itself in the best position in its 18-year history to advance deep into the MMSL playoffs. A 9-4 record earned Big Blue the fourth seed and a first-round bye, meaning that the team needs to win just two out of three to advance to Sunday.

Last year, the league sent 12 of its 22 teams to the playoffs, with the press club seeded 11th. This year, all of the 16 teams will go, though the bottom eight teams must survive a single-elimination play-in game to get into the 12-team, double-elimination bracket.

The key will be NPC's first game. The press club will be playing a lower-seeded team, most likely the Gazette, which it beat twice this season enroute to the Layhill Division championship. Then again, last year, the lower-ranked press club knocked the Gazette, the top seed, out of the playoffs. Should NPC win, it would face top-ranked WRC, which defeated Big Blue, 7-5, earlier this season in a game where the press club had the tying runs on base in the final inning. An NPC victory puts the team into the winners' bracket finals. A loss means the club needs to win one more game to return on Sunday and then needs two victories to reach the championship round.

A loss in its first game, however, means the press club would have to win three straight games to reach Sunday, albeit all of them might be against lower-seeded teams. That's not assured though; there have been plenty of first-round upsets, meaning a WRC or USA Today or AOL could find themselves in the losers' bracket early and require the press club to get past them in order to reach Sunday. 

To win the championship, NPC will have to defeat the top teams in the league. Besides WRC, NPC lost to AOL on a fluke play at third base, when a batted ball hit the runner standing on the base and the press club couldn't get the third out when the ball ricocheted away. AOL then scored six two-out runs. The press club did beat USA Today, 11-7, opening up an 11-2 lead and withstanding a seventh-inning rally. The loss, by the way, cost USA Today the top seed in the tourney.

NPC has two of the league's strongest women players in second basewoman-outfielder Sarahanne Driggs and outfielder Staci Maiers. Second basewoman Dana Brown is out for the playoffs, but newcomer Adele Cehrs will be able to give both Driggs and Maiers a breather if needed. Also missing on Saturday is center fielder-shortstop Clay Kaufman, though he will return on Sunday if the press club is still playing.

At pitcher, Ryan Donmoyer threw two shutouts this season and has been nearly flawless. Domen will back him up on the mound, but again, if NPC wins game 1, Donmoyer should be able to pitch the three games. Mike DeSenne pitched, and won, earlier in the season but will miss the playoffs.

Mike Diegel has been a spectacular leadoff hitter all season and will split time between right field and designated hitter, along with Bill Holland. Diegel had been sharing first base all season with Jonathan Salant, but will move to the outfield to make room for Kyle McKinnon. Domen and Morin will share center in Kaufman's absence. The team's rookie of the year, Jim Seminara, will share third base with veteran Frank Fuhrig. Jon Allen will play shortstop and Mike Young left field.

Amy Fickling, who with Salant are the last original members of the inaugural 1992 team; Melissa Robinson, one of three remaining members of the 1993 division champs along with Salant and Kaufman; and newcomer Jennifer Dickson will share the catching duties. Cehrs may be pressed into service as catcher as well in order to give everyone some playing time.

Salant, the team's founder and original coach, gave up the reins after the 1996 season but returned in 2007 after Jeff St. Onge, who coached the 2006 division winners, transferred to London. He is stepping down as coach for the second time after the season. He and St. Onge are the only two NPC coaches to win divisional titles. (Salant also coached the 2004 Associated Press team to the Layhill championship, remaining the only coach in the league to lead two different teams to division titles.)

League and club rules restrict participation to NPC members and their spouses or significant others; while the league does allow teams to ``grandfather'' players who are no longer employed by a news organization, or in the case of the press club no longer members, the policy of the Board of Governors is to restrict the team to current members and their partners.

The press club has won only two playoff games in its history, one against UPI in the mid-1990s and last year against the Gazette. Both were higher-seeded teams. The club went two-and-out in the two previous years, 1993 and 2006, that it won a division championship. The team has never won more than one playoff game in a tournament and has never reached Sunday.

This weekend could change all that.

0 comments - Posted by Jonathan D. Salant at 10:39 AM - Categories:

Playoff Notes

0 comments - Posted by Jonathan D. Salant at 1:23 PM - Categories:

Four Days

0 comments - Posted by Jonathan D. Salant at 4:45 PM - Categories:

Fourth Seed

0 comments - Posted by Jonathan D. Salant at 3:12 PM - Categories:

Division Champs

0 comments - Posted by Jonathan D. Salant at 12:06 PM - Categories: