Ammo’s bombs clinch first softball title

  • Published
  • By Kevin Gaddie
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
The 96th Maintenance Squadron outlasted the 96th Operations Support Squadron 17-15 Aug. 28 to take the intramural softball league championship title here.

The Ammo team entered the final contest with an 11-1 record.  They were determined to defeat Ops, last year’s champions.  Ops took the field at 13-2, after a season plagued with rained-out games and a number of teams exiting the league early.

Both teams had one strategy to win the title – to score as many runs as possible in seven innings.

Ops batted first.  Brian Keels’ double to left field drove in the first run.  They led 2-0 at the end of the first inning.

Ammo answered quickly at the bottom of the first when Brenden Hewlett smashed his first home run with two men on base, for a 3-2 lead.  Ammo left the inning with a 4-2 advantage. 

Hewlett belted his second consecutive homer in the second inning, with one man on. 

Great defense from both teams, at the bases and in the outfield, kept the game close through the next two innings.

With an 8-6 lead in the bottom of the fourth, Ammo began dropping bombs on Ops when Tyler Leemon’s homer with one man on, upped the score to 10-6.  Gage Walsh and Jonathan Contreras’ hot bats put Ammo further in front, 12-6.

James Scharf, Ops’ coach, went into the fifth inning confident in his team despite the momentum shift.

“We just have to play our game and hit,” he said.

Andy Wolfe’s solo shot over the left field fence brought a roar from the Ops dugout and narrowed the deficit to 12-7.  Their excitement was soon nullified by an Ammo defensive double play.

Leemon, Ammo’s coach, urged his team to work harder to win the game at home plate in the sixth.

“We need to string more of these hitting spurts together and be more consistent,” he said.

Justin Nunley heard Leemon and smacked a home run to widen the lead, 13-7.

Michael Wortham’s triple, Hewlett’s third homer of the night and Jonathan Contreras’ unaccompanied home run gave Ammo four runs for a commanding 17-7 lead. The team combined for six home runs in just six innings.

They hoped the 10-run gap was enough to put the game out of the Ops team's reach.

Ops mounted a late comeback charge at the top of the seventh, scoring eight runs, inspired by Aiden Smith’s lead-off solo blast.  But, valiant batting contributions from Scharf, Keels, Wolfe and Carlos Santiago were not enough to catch Ammo.

Ammo hung on to seal the victory and win their first championship title, 17-15.

“Ops almost caught us at the end,” Leemon said.  “That was scary.  But we came together as a team.  We had some new young kids come in this year, which made a difference.  We played great ball all season.  We wanted this one.”