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Sunday - February 4, 2007

Game 3: San Diego at Texas

Sadly, the Horns ended up losing the third game of the San Diego series. They just seemed a bit flat today. They actually scored the first run of the game in the 6th. Jordan Danks flew out to lf to start the inning. Bradley Suttle, with his 3rd hit of the game, doubled to lf. Preston Clark, with his 2nd hit of the game, hit a bloop single to shallow cf. Bradley scored on the play. And, that was it. The team had 5 hits. All of them by Bradley and Preston. They reached on back-to-back singles to start the 2nd. Chance Wheeless then reached on a sac bunt attempt that went bad (E4, the 2b dropped the throw from p). So, bases loaded and no outs. Pat McCrory reached an a 5-2 fielder's choice (no run). Kyle Russell struck out swinging. And, Travis Tucker flew out to cf. In the 4th, Bradley led off again with a single. He moved to 2b on a sac bunt by Preston. Chance walked. Runners at 1b and 2b with 1 out. Pat, sadly, hit into a 5-4-3 double play.

On the pitching side of things, James Russell did a good job. He threw the first 7 innings...giving up only 2 hits through the first 6 innings, while striking out 3, walking 1, and hitting 2. That second hit batter sure looked iffy but anyway... The 7th did not go well. Justin Snyder doubled to the rf corner to start off the inning. Jordan Abruzzo followed that up with a looooong home run to lf. From our seats, it looked like it was just barely fair. But, we had a terrible angle so I don't really know how close it was. The next three batters went down in order on 4 pitches. So, that was sweet. But, the damage had been done. Austin Wood came on in the 8th and got into a bit of trouble. But, he worked his way out of it. He was not so lucky in the 9th. Abruzzo started the inning off with a single and Shane Buschini followed it up with a home run to lf that just cleared the fence. In fact, for just a second, I thought Jordan Danks had caught the ball. Alas, no. The Horns did get a couple of runners aboard in the bottom of the inning via a walk and an error but...no hits. So, no runs. It's a shame, after the good game he pitched, but James took the loss.

Defensively, the Horns made several really pretty plays. They picked a runner off in the 1st (1-5-6). Chance made a nice play to end the 1st by catching a foul ball at the edge of the San Diego dugout. He tripped over a bucket of balls at the top of the steps and fell into the dugout but held onto the ball. Nick Peoples made a couple of very long runs in cf to rob San Diego hitters of base hits. In the 5th, Jordan did make a leaping catch at the wall in lf to snag a ball that looked to be about a foot over the top of the wall. It surely would've been amazing if he'd also snagged that ball hit to nearly the same spot in the 9th. Preston made a perfect throw to ss to catch a runner attempting to steal 2b (also in the 7th).

Ah well. Hopefully, things will turn around on Tuesday.

UPDATE (10:45 pm). Looking at video (Channel 24 10 o'clock news) of the catch Jordan made in the 5th to rob Gelbrich of a home run, it actually looks like his head was even with the top of the fence and his arm was stretched out just over the top of the wrought iron fence at the edge of the grassy berm behind the wall. What a leap! Wow.

UPDATE #2 (11:05 pm): I checked out the TexasSports.com photos from the game and they had a great shot of Jordan making that catch:

Posted by Joanna at 9:33 PM