Fueled by two Josh Ghena grand slams, Harmony Sea Kittens (2-3) closed the first half of their Pittsburgh League season with a roar, catching their rival Baltimore Factorioles (1-4) on a down night and splashing to a 21-1 victory at a wet, muddy Olbrich Park.
Not to be overshadowed by Ghena’s big flies, Meghan MeWe Williams notched her first career hit in the win
June 5, 2013
The Harmony Sea Kittens (2-3) closed the first half of their Pittsburgh League season with a roar, catching their rival Baltimore Factorioles (1-4) on a down night and splashing to a 21-1 victory at a wet, muddy Olbrich Park. The win was the Kittens’ first over the Monopoles/Factorioles franchise, which owned a 2-0 all-time mark against the Harmony squad coming into the game.
Entering the game with a 0.222 batting average precipitously close to his playing weight, Detroit Josh Ghena, The Leviathan of Livonia, erupted from his season-long dormancy by mashing two grand slam home runs and finished 3-4 with 3 runs scored and 9 runs batted in, and added a nifty sliding catch in left field for show.
Ghena’s first blast- a no-doubt-about-it rocket over the left field fence and into Starkweather Creek- came with two outs in the bottom of the first inning and staked Los Gatitos to a 5-0 lead from which they’d never look back.
Tom Hopalong Cichosz (1-3) picked up the win for the Kittens, pitching a complete-game several hitter in which he walked 2 and struck out 6 while skating around the slick Olbrich infield. The Factorioles’ lone run came on a stuck-in-the-mud swinging bunt that flummoxed the Kittens’ battery of Cichosz and rookie Meghan Weaver.
While the Kittens’ bats provided the night’s glitzy highlights- the team rapped out 20 hits, including a team-record 7 doubles- the team’s defense also regained the steadiness it displayed in 2012, holding miscues to a minimum and the Factoriole offense in check. Included the steady play were Katherine Goat-Roper Curtis making her season debut at second base, Heidibadger Nelson making her career debut at first base in the games’ later innings, and Hadley Boomer Boehm making the play of the night at third base, snagging a one-hop rocket in the 5-6 hole off Factoriole pitcher Mike Wood’s bat and casually forcing a Baltimore runner at second base in the 5th.
The Caribou Tavern Bou Crew (0-5) is next on the Sea Kittens’ schedule, but that squad will likely be relegated and replaced by familiar foe and first-half Buffalo League Champion Silver Eagle (formerly South Side Badgers). The Sea Kits own a 2-1 all-time advantage over the Silver Eagle, including a dramatic 13-12 come-from-behind walk-off victory in the clubs’ only 2012 meeting in which a 2-out, 2-run Cichosz double capped a 4-run rally in the bottom of the 7th- followed by his famous “climb-the-fence victory roar.”
Game Notes
The 21 runs matched the all-time high for the Kittens in a summer league game.
Josh became the first Kitten to hit two over-the-fence home runs in a single game, and the second Kitten with 2 HR in a game (Joe, 7-21-2010 vs. South Side Badgers).
Josh’s grand slams were the second and third in Kitten history (Joe Litchfield 8-26-2010) and the first in summer league play.
Josh’s 9 RBI broke Litchfield’s single-game record (8, in the same game).
The 7 doubles were a team record, as were the 3 HR.
Meghan notched her first career hit.
Through 5 games, the Kittens have drawn 14 walks vs. 12 strikeouts, while Kittens pitchers have only walked 9 batters while striking out 2
Sea Kittens
