Following the 10th week of Adult Summer Softball League play, seeding for the final tournament became much clearer, but it will not be crystal clear until after the first game of Week 11.

What is known is that Reddell Construction leads the “A” Division with a three-win record after it picked up a 2-0 win over Red Rocks Rotary.

Rotary along with A Day in the West and Pagos are tied with two wins each. Dirty Rats was also spotless in the “B” Division, whose final standings are already set. After the first-place Dirty Rats are the L’Auberge Mighty Ducks, Rough Country Pools & Spa and ABC Body Shop.

Rotary has one of the best defenses in the league. It gave up just 43 runs, the fewest during regular season by a sizeable margin; the next best was Pagos at 59.

On paper the matchup between Rotary and Reddell looked to be a defensive one, and indeed it was.

Reddell got on the board in the first when Jack McMahon batted in Mike Alvarez in a bases loaded, one out situation. The leaders followed up by retiring all three Rotary batters in the bottom of the inning.

Both teams traded good defensive plays. The third frame saw Rotary’s John Bradshaw rope a stand-up, leadoff double and get moved over to third, but did not get brought in.

By contrast, Reddell’s Jeff Lynch and McMahon singled in the fourth. A routine play gone wrong gave an extra base to Lynch, and Koda Keane’s fielder’s choice gave the team its second and final run.

“We played a lot of small ball, we weren’t hitting well, but we took advantage on the base path,” Reddell’s Shane Trimble said. “That’s what you’ve got to do when you’re playing against a good defense.”

Rotary also touts the second-best offense from the regular season with 99 runs scored, but struggled on the day.
“Pitch selection, we were swinging at balls up, down, in, out,” Rotary’s Mike Hughes said. “They played a good game, they’re a solid team.”

Rotary did pick up a win to start the day, a 13-8 decision against Pagos. It was tied 8-8 after seven innings, but Rotary poured in five during the extra inning to make for the lopsided score.

Pagos bounced back with a 13-9 victory against six-man Rokzoo Bucket List. Rokzoo did lead 3-0 after the top of the first, but Pagos came back with a four-run response.

“We just made some errors and didn’t hit,” Pagos’ Mauro Trahin Sr. said. “They were making good plays. Errors, that’s what kills us.”

Carlos Rodriguez and Francisco Pacheco got into scoring position with no outs and Nando Machado delivered the RBI double. Randy Rodriguez singled and a fielding error allowed Machado to score the tying run.

Finally it was Kyle Abrigo who gave his team the lead at 4-3. The advantage swelled to 7-3 after the third inning, but Rokzoo did not roll over.

With the help of a dropped pop up, it put Pagos into a bases loaded, zero out bind. Ricardo Romero batted in Javier Somosa before a pair of fielder’s choices brought it to 7-6. Consecutive hits made it 8-7.

Pagos took the lead back by scoring five runs of its own; a couple helped in by errors. Machado hit a home run to put an exclamation point on the offensive inning.

“I think if we have the whole team show up and play we should be OK,” Rokzoo’s Adam Rodriguez said. “We just hit OK but we couldn’t be everywhere. It’s tough with two positions short.”

The L’Auberge Mighty Ducks started their day with a 14-5 win over Rough Country. After a one game break, ABC Body Shop gave them a run for their money.

ABC had its biggest offensive outing on the season, holding an 8-6 lead all the way until the top of the seventh inning. It was an open inning, and the Mighty Ducks were relentless in scoring 12 runs to put the game away.

“Half of the team didn’t know what an open inning was, we’ve never made it that far,” ABC’s Adam Day said.

The Mighty Ducks had a 4-0 lead through three frames. Then in the fourth ABC reached the inning limit of five runs scored. Steve Sapone batted in Adam Day.

Riley Lucas singled and Renee Day sent in Sapone. Finally Mario Ibarra hit a two-out single to score Renee Day, giving his team the lead.

“The people who don’t swing well, we told them to stop swinging, it seemed to be a good idea,” Renee Day said.
The Dirty Rats beat ABC 15-1.

Looking ahead, Rotary plays A Day in the West and Pagos takes on Reddell to cement tournament seeding.

Teams will want to avoid the three and six seeds because on the final day of the season they could potentially play three straight games. They will play one another, the winner would immediately play a semifinal and then straight into the championship game, should they make it that far.

Adult Summer Softball
Standings — Week 10