Barons 7, at Beavers 3 September 30, 2007, 10:00 AM Game Recap
Barons 7, at Beavers 3
2007 35+ Championship
The Barons won their third championship in four years. Among the three-time winners are Jim Meehan, Frank DeRosa and Bill Magoolaghan.
The 2007 finals between the Barons and the Beavers exhibited some great baseball. Both games were very exciting, extremely well played, and plain old fun to participate in. In the end the difference was pitching depth, and an over-powering offense.
Justin Kubiak, who was an offensive catalyst and rock solid shortstop all year, seemed to hit another gear in the playoffs. He started or finished almost every rally, hitting .625 for the series, scoring 4 and knocking in 3. He was involved in 7 of the Barons 14 runs in the two-game series.
Rick Russelle, the most feared hitter in Bay Area baseball history, Karl Maier, Rob Fung, Tim Durazzo, etc, etc, provided the big bats for the Barons, who pounded out 30 hits in the two-game series against some really good and gutsy Beaver pitching. Check out the box scores for the numbers.
The most heroic and pivotal moment of the series occurred when Rob Fung hit a two-run homerun in the bottom of the 8th inning of game one to put the Barons up 7 – 6. Scott Eberhart then came in to pitch the ninth and closed the door to seal the victory. The Barons stole this one when things weren’t looking good at all.
Scooter was absolutely phenomenal throughout the playoffs; he’s the prototypical closer. In the semi-final game against the Seals, he fanned the side in the 8th and 9th, and shut down the Beavers in the ninth of both final-series games. Including the semi-final game, he threw 4 innings, struck out a whopping 9 batters, gave up no hits and no runs, and no inherited runners scored either.
This team was definitely built by a catcher. Jason Clark, the ace of the staff, was nearly untouchable when he was healthy, Bill Magoo was his usual masterful self, and Mike Eberhart, Steve Ewing, and Will Bateson filled out the rest of this talented frontline pitching staff. In reserve was Karl Maier who started the semi-final game against the Seals. It was his first start ever, he’d only pitched 3 innings of mop up all season, and he responded with 7 gutsy innings.
What a fun year and I can honestly say this is the best group of guys I’ve had the pleasure of playing with…Let’s get started with ’08!
Congratulations to Brian Willis, John Sechler, Don Chambers and Raffy Quiroz, etal, of the Beavers, they put together a really good season after some early roster challenges and played some great baseball down the stretch, especially during the final series. There were two great teams out on the field during the final series.
