Cotuit Falls Behind Early to Hard-Hitting Falmouth Commodores and the Hosts Prevail to Force Game Three

Story By Sean Walsh, Web Editor/CAA

SUNDAY, August 10, 2008

FALMOUTH — The Falmouth Commodores jumped out to an early, 2-0, first-inning lead last night at Elmer "Guv" Fuller Field on UC-Riverside's Paul Applebee after the southpaw walked two batters and they both came home, and the guest Cotuit Kettleers could not catch up for the remaining eight frames in spite of numerous attempts and opportunities to do so.

    The Falmouth victory forced game three of the best-of-three Western Division series, today at Elizbaeth Lowell Park in Cotuit at 3:00 p.m. The Harwich Mariners defeated the Orleans Cardinals last night, 1-0, in 18 innings and eliminated the Eastern Division regular season champions. The winner of today's Falmouth-Cotuit game will go on to face Harwich for the Cape League championship.

    Jacksonville State's Ben Tootle, a 6'1", 180-lb. righty who hit as high as 96 MPH on the radar gun last night in the eighth and ninth innings, picked up the save while Quinnipiac's Chris Gloor got the win for the hosts.

    Applebee settled down after the first inning but the Kettleers could not get him a lead to work with in spite of his efforts, failing to lay down a pair of critical sacrifice bunts with two runners on base each time. That failure cost Cotuit dearly, as did the phenomenal, rally-killing glove-work of Wichita State rightfielde Ryan Jones who robbed Cotuit's Kevin Patterson of a sure double in the right-center gap in what arguably could be deemed as the best catch in the Cape League all summer and he robbed Jeff Kobernus of what appeared to be a home run two innings later.