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Oskarshamn vs. Göteborg 21&22 May 2005-05-24

Game 1

High hopes going into Gothenburg's first full weekend of competition in the 2005 season began promising as the Sharks worked two walks and stole two bases in the first inning Saturday. Unfortunately, the two runners were left on second and third and the Sharks went to the bottom of the first scoreless. The Oskarshamn Lost Boys didn't have the same fate in the bottom of the inning.

Gothenburg's starting pitcher Paul Couleur struggled against a crimped strike-zone and didn't get any help from the Sharks defense. Oskarshamn's leadoff hitter, Anders Helgesson hit a soft liner to short which was lost in the white scoreboard behind the plate and glanced of the glove of shortstop Andreas Wallin. This type of misplay, bad-hop, and some may call it bad luck would continue for the rest of the day- a very long and frustrating day for Gothenburg. Oskarshamn would score three runs in the bottom of the first without a hit (benefiting from an error, a walk, a balk and a pair of wild pitches).

A quick second inning composed of a fly to left and two strikeouts for the Sharks was quickly followed by another error for Gothenburg (throwing error after a strikeout), a walk, a couple of basehits and PANG, Oskarshamn had a commanding lead at 6-0.

Gothenburg worked a lonely run on two walks and two hits in the top of the fourth stranding two runners and had hopes of chipping away at the Oskarshamn lead, but Couleur struggled with the miniscule strike-zone in the bottom of the fourth inning as four walks produced two more runs for the Lost Boys. Constantly seeing belt-high fastballs over the middle of the plate called balls, demoralized the Sharks defense.

The Sharks offense, however, was not going to give up. With one out in the fifth, Johan Weidolf continued a stellar game with a single. Patience at the plate, an error and a key hit by Couleur led to Weidolf, Vanecek and Wallin plating three runs for good guys in the top of the fifth. The Sharks had cut Oskarshamn's lead in half at 8-4.

Unfortuately, the momentum immediately swung in the Lost Boy's favor. Oskarshamn's first six batters of the fifth inning reached base by way of four basehits, a walk and an error and erased Gothenburg's comeback scoring three of their own in the inning extending their lead to 11-4.

Trailing 13-6 in going into the ninth inning, the Sharks batted around and put together a worthy comeback. With the bases loaded and two outs, Gothenburg sent the go-ahead run to the plate. Third-baseman Leo Penagos nearly continued the comeback driving a liner to the outfield. Unfortuately, the Baseball gods were looking down on Oskarshamn as the liner found the mitt of Lost Boys speedy centerfielder Tony Dermendziev.

Final Score: Oskarshamn 13- Gothenburg 10

Innings	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Final Score
Göteborg	0	0	0	1	3	1	0	1	4	10
Oskarshamn	3	3	0	2	3	1	1	0	0	13

*** Notes: Sharks Centerfielder and two spot hitter Johan Weidolf had a stellar game at the plate- going 3-3 with 3 walks and scoring two runs while stealing 4 bases.
Sharks defense made the game virually impossible to win, commiting four errors and walking 12 batters.

Game 2

Dejávu was the theme of game two as Lost Boy's leadoff hitter reached base on an error by Sharks shortstop Wallin. Though Sharks starter Berzad Sardupalovic gave up just two hits in the inning, two more defensive errors resulted in Oskarshamn yet again scoring three first inning runs.

With one out in the bottom of the third, a bad hop on a would be double play ball to second (which inept scorekeeping logged as an error - right, an error on Oskarshamn's groundscrew maybe) resulted in a run scoring from second base. A line-drive double play ended the bleeding and limited the scoring to two un-earned runs. Oskarshamn led 5-0.

Three up, three down for the Sharks in the fourth was followed up by three more errors, two hits, a walk and four runs for Oskarshamn in the bottom of the inning. 9-0.

Gothenburg came back with a run in the fifth, three in the sixth, and one more in the seventh and looked to be gaining momentum and mounting a comeback, reducing the Lost Boy's lead to 9-5 going into the seventh inning stretch.

Unfortuately for the Sharks, they batted the minimum in the 8th and 9th inning while Oskarshamn scored two runs in the bottom of the 8th to secure the home-team victory 11-5.

Innings	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Final Score
Göteborg	0	0	0	0	1	3	1	0	0	5
Oskarshamn	3	0	2	4	0	0	0	2	0	11

***Notes: Weidolf continues his hot hitting with two more hits in game two.
Catcher Daniel Billow and First-baseman Jon Hildahl also contributed two hits for Gothenburg.
Defensively the Sharks were once again inept committing 8 errors!!!

Game 3 - Sunday

A smaller squad of Sharks (Wallin, Couleur and Magnus Martinsson had engagements in Gothenburg) took the field Sunday hoping to take the final game of the three game series. They sent their pitching ace, Martin Pennycook to the mound who had already logged two victories against Oskarshamn this spring.

This time Gothenburg would take a first inning run, benefiting from a Johan Weidolf base-hit, a walk by Vanecek, base-hit by Jon Hildahl, and a walk by Tobias Angser. The Sharks would score just that lone run, after having the bases loaded with just one out.

A new shortstop made no difference as Anders Helgosson started game three the way he had started the first two….reaching on a bad-hop-error by Sharks shortstop Andy Vanecek. He would come around to score as would Dermendziev as Oskarshamn took a quick 2-1 lead.

The same mini-strike zone as game one resulted in three walks that would all come around to score on a two-out triple by Dermendziev (who scored later on a wild pitch). When all was said and done, the Sharks were once again looking at an uphill battle- trailing 6-1 going into the third.

With one down in the fourth after being hit by a pitch, Curtis Dionne stole second, moved to third on a ground out to second and forcing a throw to third, scored when the throw from first came in wild. The next batter Vanecek walked and threatened to score after stealing both second and third base, but was stranded as Oskarshamn got a ground out to end the inning.

Gothenburg would cut the lead to 6-5 in the 6th inning scoring three runs on two hits and two walks, benefiting from a misplay in the outfield on a relatively deep fly ball by Leo Penagos.

After Pennycook induced three ground-outs in the bottom of the 6th, the Sharks took the lead 7-6 in the 7th, taking advantage of speed on the basepads of Daniel Ibarra and Dionne. The momentum was definitely on the West Coast's side. But, two walks, a hit batter and another defensive error gave the lead back to the Lost Boys in the bottom of the 7th (and now the game was only half over!).

Oskarshamn added a run in the bottom of the 8th on a delayed steal with runners on 1st and 3rd, plating a run before Gothenburg tagged out the runner. Things did not look good. But the Sharks had confidence that they could come back with their top of the order coming to bat in the 9th.

The rally started with one out. Weidolf walked, stole second and scored as Vanecek bounced a ball up the middle that shortstop Peter Helgosson threw wild to first. Andy then swiped second and later third, allowing himself to score on a base-hit by Leo Penagos. The game was now tied and with the bases loaded the Sharks had a good chance to take the lead with two outs. Daniel Ibarra hit the ball hard on the ground toward short, but a candy-hop made the 6-4 play easy for Oskarshamn.

With few options left in the bullpen after three pitchers had returned to Gothenburg the night before, Gothenburg put their faith in their ace, for better or for worse, for the remainder of the game. Pennycook did not disappoint, and earned the nickname "Iron-Arm", as he held Oskarshamn at scoreless for the next five innings.

In the top of the fourth inning, nearly five hours into the ballgame, Daniel Ibarra led off by working a base-on-balls. He stole second and then used his lightning speed and aggressive base-running to score from second on a ground ball to the pitcher. Ibarra never slowed down, rounding third as the throw went to first, and sliding in safely under the tag at home to break the tie giving the Sharks only their second lead of the weekend.

But….. remember what I said about the Baseball gods??? They obviously did not want the Sharks to win. With a runner on third and one out in the bottom of the 14th , Gothenburg had the infield playing in to cut off the run at home. Oskarshamn's Tomas Jacobi hit a sharp ground ball to shortstop Vanecek who threw the ball low to catcher Sardupalovic who swept his glove around tagging Hans Nilsson at the plate. After the tag, the ball dropped to the ground. The home-plate umpire called the runner out and a Major League argument insued between the umpire and third-base-coach Nate Draper. Draper was ejected as was, nearly, Jacobi who was mouthing off from first base.

The result was what looked like a possible victory for the Sharks with two out and a runner at first, Pennycook pitching well. But….the argument may have had it's benefits as obvious strike pitches were called balls and soon two walks had left the bases loaded with Oskarshamn slugger and last year's Elite Series batting title holder Tony Dermendziev coming to bat.

With a 1-0 count Tony drove a hard line-drive to the gap in left-center which plated the tying and winning run for Oskarshamn who completed the home series sweep of Gothenburg. Final Score 11-10 in 14 innings!

Innings	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Final Score
Göteborg	1	0	0	1	0	3	2	0	2	0	0	0	0	1	10
Oskarshamn	2	4	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	11

***Notes: Martin Pennycook pitched easily over 200 pitches over 14 innings in an incredibly gutsy performance on the mound.
Johan Weidolf added another hit and 3 more walks to his commanding weekend at the plate.
Tony Dermendziev had two doubles, a triple, a single, a walk, three runs scored and 6 rbi's. Jon Hildahl had two hits, a walk and a HP for the Sharks.