Ducks

Back Down To .500: Ducks Lose.

2016 South Oakland Ducks

devils pittsburgh naba

The South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (6-6) lost 7-5 to the South Hills Devils (5-6) Saturday at Herschel Field. Ducks pitchers walked eleven batters over six innings and the Devils had a few timely hits.

Trailing 4-0 going into the third, South Oakland rallied and brought the score to 4-3 when Strom singled in a run and Gwin scored on an error and TJ Morgan doubled.

Gwin was later caught in a rundown and picked off trying to steal second.

The Devils added a run in the bottom of the inning, and two more insurance runs in the fifth.

In the top of the sixth, Jimmy Moore drove in a run with a solid hit-by-pitch and McCray added a sac fly to close the gap to 7-5. Moore pitched the bottom of the sixth, struck out 2 and kept the devils off the board.

South Hills held off a late South Oakland rally, and the Ducks left the tying run on second base in the top of the seventh.

DEVILZ_PIttsburgh NABA_GIF

  • This was a tough one to lose, but we played them tough without our entire starting infield.
  • It was good to have Limbach back.
  • The ump had a small zone and we weren’t as patient as we could have been in some cases. Strom got squeezed but we didn’t make their guy work as hard as we could have.
  • We are still right in the thick of it, at 6-6 and only 1.5 games back.
  • Big game against the Eagles (7-5), Wednesday night 9PM at Springview Field.

Quack

The Scooter is Safe: Ducks Win, 6-3

2016 South Oakland Ducks, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Chris Heisler (1-0) earned his first win and Gary Musisko recorded his first hit as Duck, leading South Oakland (6-5) to a 6-3 victory over the Hebrew Oilers (7-4-1) Wednesday night in Spring Hill.

With the Ducks clinging to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth, Graff and Zuzak singled to start the inning followed by Musisko’s double off the ivy in left-center. Sorosky followed with an RBI single to chase the General from the mound.

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Still in the fifth, Casale walked and Gwin singled with the bases loaded to put the Ducks up 5-0. Gwin would later score on Chartier’s RBI groundout.

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The Oilers fought back. In the sixth, some kid got hit three times before he was awarded first. One of the Ciccones got tossed. The Oilers scored three on an RBI double by NABA legend Dan Rouf (sic).

Zuzak relieved Heisler for the two inning save.

The win snapped a three-game losing streak and moves South Oakland into a tie for second.

bullets_fever

  • Pat DiPaola stole third
  • Joe Graff has a two-game hit streak going
  • Weird batter interference call on the attempted steal of home by that fast kid on the Oilers. Also, how was the batter called out and not the runner in that instance?
  • A. Ciccone went 3-for-4 with three singles in a losing effort
  • Winner of the Ducks Oilers game on June 21st at Mellon Park gets the scooter that kid threw at us last week. The scooter will remain with the team that wins the season series between the Ducks and Oilers as long as the two teams are in existence. This is the inaugural Spring Hill Scooter Series.
  • Seven teams are within 2.5 games of first. Should be an exciting stretch run

disco rubber ducks

All hands on deck for the Devils game this Saturday. A bunch of guys are out of town.

Quack

 

 

 

 

Gameday 10: Ducks vs. Eagles

2016 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side

vs.

South Side Eagles

9pm

Springview Field

After two tough losses and what feels like a month off, the Ducks (5-4) take on the Eagles (5-5) at Spring Hill tonight. The Ducks held on for a 10-7 win in the teams’ previous meeting.

South Side has the second best run differential in the league, but is only at .500. They score a lot of runs.

The standings are really tight right now. The Wolfpack are in first place at 6-3 and the next six teams are separated by 2 games. Cranberry is having a rough start at 1-6-1, but are only three back in the loss column.

This is a big game tonight as South Oakland looks to gain separation from the pack and stay in the hunt for a first round bye in the playoffs.

KellyLeak_cigBad News for the Eagles

Game Day 8: Ducks at WOLFPACK

2016 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (5-2)

at

West View WOLFPACK (3-3)

8:30PM

John Herb Field

The first place Ducks look to win their fourth straight game when they face rival West View in what should be a close game between two evenly matched teams. South Oakland beat West View 9-6 early this season, but the WOLFPACK!!! are tough at home. They have a loyal and vocal fan base.

Some history for the new guys:

 

The WOLFPACK eliminated us from the playoffs in the 2014 semis in a series that turned when we were kicked off that field in Jefferson Hills over a permit dispute the weekend of some country music concert. In the rescheduled game, Strom was perfect through 3 innings before Donnie was thrown out at the plate and accidentally ran into their catcher. Benches cleared, as they do sometimes in adult league sports. They came back from a 1-0 series deficit to beat us in 3 games. Fetter blew out his knee and moved off the grid to southern California, never to be heard from again.

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They are always tough. John Herb is one of the nicest fields we get to play on, and it’s always in great shape. This game will pit the veteran savvy of the Ducks against the youth of West View.

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 Bad News for the WOLFPACK

 

 

Express Yourself. Ducks Win: 4-3

2016 South Oakland Ducks, Ducks win, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland of the North Side (3-2) beat the Carrick Express (2-2) by a score of 4-3, behind a strong start by ageless wonder, Brian Strom and a game winning RBI by Andy Nichols in Spring Hill last night.

The Ducks lead 3-0 going into the top of the seventh, then Carrick tied it after four walks, a single and two ground outs.

Then a day after losing on a walk-off single to the Oilers, South Oakland came back and won in the seventh after Mike Brandt singled, to lead off the inning and pinch runner Musisko advanced to second on a ground out and scored on Nichols ground ball that was misplayed by Carrick’s short stop.

The game marked Ben Sorosky’s first win as Ducks interim manager.

South Oakland’s next game is this Saturday 12pm at Herschel Field against the Eagles

Ducks Win. South Oakland 9, West View 6

Ducks win, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, Recap, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland improved its record to 2-1, defeating the WOLFPACK (2-2) 9-6 in Spring Hill last night. Ducks starter, Chuck Zuzack (1-1) pitched four innings, scattering 9 hits, striking out 4. Catcher, Brandon Chartier went 3-for-3 with a walk, double and 2RBI and Andy Nichols went 2-for-2 with an RBI double and notched his first save of the season in relief.

The_Pack_Wolfpack_Party_coverThe game was back and forth all night, with West View scoring two runs in the top of the first. The Ducks tied the game in the bottom of the second when Zuzack drove in Chartier with an RBI E6 and Sorosky scored on Nichols walk.

The WOLFPACK scored two more in the top of the third, and the Ducks answered with another two runs in the bottom of the third on Chartier’s RBI double. West View added one in the top of the fourth and the Ducks took the lead in the bottom half of the inning on two singles, an error and a walk.

Peep Guillotine

The Ducks added one run in the fifth and two in the sixth. Musisko entered the game for Zuzack in the fifth and allowed one run in two innings of work, before Nichols recorded the save in the seventh.

***do-not-trust-ducks

I hope their second baseman’s leg is OK. He hurt it trying to make a sliding stop on a ball up the middle and it looked like his knee stuck and he had to be helped off the field. It’s terrible how much better shape the East End fields are in than Spring View. We need the gentrification to spread to Spring Hill and get some yuppie youth league playing there, and maybe that will change. We’ve been trying to find a better field for years, and haven’t been able to since the Oilers snagged Mellon out from under us in the great Ciccone defection of 2015.

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This was a big win over a good team. We battled. Erasing 3 different West View leads before they ran out of arms. We also had a lot of good at bats and made them throw a lot of pitches. Last season we dropped a few winnable games early while management figured out where everyone fit, so far we’ve avoided that.

RAMBO

Next game is Tuesday, 6:45 at Hebrew Oilers in Shady Side.

quack

Ducks Split Weekend Series. Face WOLFPACK in Home Opener Wednesday

2016 South Oakland Ducks, Ducks win, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, Recap

South Oakland lost 9-4 to the Devils on Saturday. The game was 2-1 Devils in the third, then the Ducks relief pitching allowed 7 runs in two frames. The Ducks battled back to score three in the top of the seventh, but it was too little too late. The Ducks had the bases loaded for Tuomisto, trailing 2-0 in the 3rd, and he hit a deep line drive to left, but Huber made a nice catch for the Devils to end the threat. Huber later missed one while playing catcher that hit the ump in the balls.

Our best player was the kid we called up from single A. He went 2-for-3 stole 4 bases and scored twice. Ducks Pitcher Chuck Zuzak had a strong start, allowing 1 earned over 4 innings. Reliever Gary Musiko cleaned up the mess in the bottom of the sixth, striking out the last batter of the inning after allowing a single and a walk.

Overall not as bad a performance as the score might indicate.

The Ducks bounced back on Sunday to beat Cranberry 7-5 in Cranberry. South Oakland had RBI from DJ Dover and Jon Moore went 3-for-3. TJ Morgan went first to third on a single to right. Cranberry scored 3 in the bottom of the seventh to make it close.

The Ducks bullpen has been shaky, but when Andy Nichols and Brian Strom return from injury, it will help. If Moore and Sorosky can give us some innings we will be in great shape going forwards. Hard to say if we have no depth or great depth on the mound at this point. There’s a lot up in the air.

South Oakland will face the WOLFPACK Wed night at home. The schedule still says 8:30 so plan on that start time. However, there is a chance we will get pushed back by youth league.

quack

 

Game Day 1: Ducks at Devils

2016 South Oakland Ducks

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side

at

South Hills Devils

12pm

Herschel Park

The Devils are another team that had a bad record last year, but managed to beat us for one of their few wins. They had the right to play in Single A this year, but chose to stay in Double A. Good for them. There are a bunch of guys on this team that I played 28+ Bulldogs with. Also, Chris Wojton is a beast. Who knows. Maybe they’ll be better this season.

Wojton Clan

We don’t have our full compliment of players on hand today, but we’ve got at least nine, so we’ve got a chance.

Bad News for the Devils