Lizo A completes undefeated season

Story by Blake Bernier, Staff writer

The men’s Lizo A team completed the undefeated season by mercy ruling the Richmond Shenanigans in the intramural championship on Tuesday night 21- 3.

Throughout the tournament, the Lizo A team, coached by Cody Durbin, senior from Brandenburg, Kentucky, averaged 15 runs and fewer than four runs against them per game.

“We dominated all year long,” Durbin said. “We just hit the ball really good and played solid defense and we really played as a team.”

Lizo A swept both championships with the women’s team winning 3-2 over the AOPi A team.

In the semifinal game, the men’s Lizo A team played the only other team to go undefeated in the regular season, Who’s on First. Only eight players showed up to play for Who’s on First, a day after Chase Bittner, junior from Evansville, Indiana, said the chances of a perfect season depended on whether enough guys showed up.

Durbin said it helped them out playing against a team of eight players. That limited Who’s on First’s defense and opened large gaps for hitters to place the ball and rack up runs.

The championship game against the Shenanigans was lopsided from the first inning with Lizo A jumping out to a 10-0 lead. Lizo A team scored six of the 10 runs with two outs, including an in-the-park homerun by speedy, senior Trey Carr from Madisonville, Kentucky.

Carr said he knew he would score on the hit when he reached second base and saw the fielder hadn’t collected the ball yet. Later in the game, Carr used his speed to earn a single on a routine ground ball to shortstop. The shortstop didn’t attempt a throw.

“It feels pretty good knowing that anytime I hit it into the infield, nine out of 10 times I’m going to be safe,” Carr said.

Each team scored a run in the second inning keeping Lizo A up by 10 runs. The third inning is when the Shenanigans collapsed.

The Shenanigans committed three errors during a second 10-run offensive surge from Lizo A.

“We have our spurts,” Durbin said. “We had a game earlier in the year that we were losing 4-2 in the bottom of the fourth, and we scored 15 runs to run rule them.”

After the game, senior pitcher Hal Abel from Millstadt, Illinois, apologized to his teammates for allowing 21 runs.

“Mid-season we had to make a pitching change and you have a team lean on your arm and come championship game it’s just a little too much, it breaks down,” Abel said.

  Abel’s teammates were quick to shift the blame to their defensive effort and the absence of the Shenanigans most valuable player, sophomore Brendon Shepard from Du Quoin, Illinois who missed the final game.

In true Shenanigans fashion, the team decided to make a statement with each player providing one word at a time. They said that they thought they could leave early because the errors made the game end faster with the mercy rule coming into play.

Shenanigans coach senior Taran Coleman said they were a “B team with a dream” that came out to have fun and made it to the championship but came up one game short.

Durbin said he told the team that if they scored two or three runs then it would be hard for the Shenanigans to comeback against their defense.

“Defense wins championships and that’s what we did tonight,” said senior Kris Cowan.