A huge early-inning offensive outburst proved just enough to carry Sea Kittens (4-1-1) past a relentless, never-say-die Bat & Boujee squad in a wild, 22-18 slugfest at Bowman Park October 2. The win secured the # 2 seed for the Cats for the Madison Sport & Social Club Thursday Night League Fall softball playoffs, slated to begin October 9.
The Cats have historically been slow starters in 6:30 PM game but that was not the case this unseasonably warm October evening. Alex “Puma” Latzka opened the game with a single to center field and next eight Sea Kittens followed with hits. By the end of the inning the entire 13-batter Sea Kitten lineup had stepped to the plate and delivered 3 doubles among its 10 hits and a 9-0 lead.
But there would be no easy cruising for the Cats this night as the potent Bat & Boujee lineup answered for 3 runs in the bottom of the inning, and left opportunities for more on base.
Roadrunner smacks a two-run double in the 2nd, the first of two two-baggers for her.
Back at the top of their lineup, the Cats struck back in a very Brewers-esque way, with Megan “Slam” Salm, Dan DynamOele, and Jami “Roadrunner” Hauer lashing back-to-back-to-back one-out doubles to get the party started for the Sea Kitten offense again. All told the Cats sent 15 batters to the plate in the second and rode a string of 10 consecutive hits in ballooning their lead to 19-3.
Nevertheless, Bat and Boujee persisted. The Boujee crew battled back with 6 runs in the bottom of the second, delivering a very clear message that this would be no stroll through the park no matter how many runs Sea Kittens piled up.
Slash Grutzik lashes a run-scoring double in the 2nd, one of nine Sea Kittens doubles in the game, one off the team record.
The top of the 3rd inning started as the first two did for Sea Kittens, this time with DynamO walking and Roadrunner doubling him to 3rd, setting the stage for David “The Ringer” Engeldinger’s line-shot three-run home run to left-center field to put Los Gatitos up 22-9. And then… the Kitten offense slumbered.
It all seemed fine as the Cats’ defense finally made a stand in the bottom of the 3rd inning, holding B&B off the board, with Emily “The Rocket” Thern demonstrating her prowess in gunning down a runner at first on one of those dreaded nubbers into the sand pit in front of the plate. While the B&B batter lamented that he didn’t get out of the box quicker, onlookers knew that Thern simply would have delivered the strike to Cats’ first baseman Stephen “Slash” Grutzik with even more vicious velocity.
But after Boujee held Sea Kittens scoreless in the top of the 4th the game approached its time limit, and the bottom of the inning would be the last. It seemed like it would either never end for the Sea Kittens, or might end very, very badly. The Cats’ 13-run advantage shriveled, run by run, hit by hit- not in a Sea Kitten-esque let’s-be-silly way, but under the withering assault of the Boujee offense. Finally, after at least 13 Boujers batted and nine scored, the Cats squeezed the third out, hanging on for a 22-18 win. In 279 Sea Kittens games it was only the 4th time 40 or more runs were scored by the dueling opponents, and the Cats needed all they could muster.
Results
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | R |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bat and Boujee | 3 | 6 | 0 | 9 | 18 |
| Sea Kittens | 9 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 22 |
Bat and Boujee
| AB | R | H | RBI | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SF | IP | RA | WK | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Sea Kittens
| Player | AB | R | H | RBI | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SF | IP | RA | WK | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex The Puma Latzka | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Megan “Slam” Salm | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dan DynamOele | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jami “Roadrunner” Hauer | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| David “The Ringer” Engeldinger | 3 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Emalie Thern | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Stephen “Slash” Grutzik | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mama Cat O’Brien | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Joe Hennessy | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 18 | 1 | 0 |
| Kendra All Day Haight | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Josh “Rusty” Weber | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Red Shoes Hewitt | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Braden “Gas” Furness | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 38 | 22 | 27 | 22 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 18 | 1 | 0 |
Salmon Snacks
- Nice job by everybody to get us through a 13-person lineup 3 full times!
- There was a lot of good baserunning
- David for his 3-3 game with a HR and 6 RBI
- David’s brand new bat, making its first-ever swings
- Jami for her two-double game
- Stephen for his two-double game
- Braden & Josh for each of their two-out two-run doubles
- Emalie for the great play at the plate to throw out the BB runner at first
Sea Kittens Great Fillet of the Game
You didn’t have to see it to believe it- Emalie gets this week’s Great Fillet by acclimation! The dart she threw from home to first on a nubber in front of the plate was pretty awesome to see.
Next Up
Playoffs! Sea Kittens (4-1-1) will have a first-round bye as the Thursday Night-Penn League #2 seed, and will square off against the winner of the Bat & Boujee (2-4) vs Dairyland Dingers (1-5) matchup. Check back for announcement of playoff schedule.
Roster notes and transactions
TBA
Game Notes
- With 40 runs scored between the two teams, this ranked as the fourth-highest scoring Sea Kittens game ever! The biggest was a 34-11 four-inning beatdown of Steal Your Base October 5, 2016. The other two 40+ games were both 7-inning Championship games- a 29-15 loss to Harmony Royals in the 2021 Harmony Tournament and a 28-16 loss to Kendra’s Excalibur squad in the 2021 MSSC Fall Championship.
- CHECK OUT the NEW Single Game Team Records page!
- The Cats’ 19 runs in the first two innings is their biggest first & second inning total ever, topping 17 scored against Beer View Mirrors 9/8/2022.
- The 18 runs allowed matches the most Sea Kittens have ever allowed in a win- the only other time was a 19-18 walkoff win over Eric Montemayor’s SP Prairie Dogs in a June 15, 2023 playoff win.
- Sea Kittens are now 2-40 all-time when allowing 17 or more runs in a game
- On the flipside, the Cats are 56-0 when scoring 17 or more runs
- Sea Kittens NINE doubles matched the club’s 3rd-most ever, and the most in a game since they hit eight in a 14-12 win over I’d Hit That September 18, 2019.
- The Cats’ total of 10 extra base hits was the 12th time they’d reached or passed that mark.
- Sea Kittens are now 5-6-1 all-time against Bat & Boujee, one of the team’s most evenly-matched rivalries.
- Jami (2) and Megan’s (1) three total doubled matched the record for doubled by Sea Kittens women in a game- it’s the 4th time in the team’s 279-game history.
- Last time it happened was 9/27/2017 (Erin 2, Jami 1)
- The other instances were 9/13/2017 (Erin 3) and in Sea Kittens GAME TWO- June 9, 2010! But it feels like this record is not long for the books…
- David played his 30th game as a Sea Kitten!
- Stephen matched Bradley “Sweet Thing” Harkins’ 85 games played, and moved into a tie for 12th on the Cats’ all-time games played list.
- The two-double game was the second of Jami’s career (9/18/2019)
- Josh recorded his 100th hit as a Sea Kitten in the 2nd inning. I think he had 100 more hits against the Cats in his career with the Monopoles/Factorioles/Infield Flies franchise.