USA Today 1st Repeat Champions Since 200-’01

So when the Gannetoids moved past the Associated Press in its first game to open the playoffs Saturday at Cabin John, disposed of a tough Team Video—the No. 1 seed—in the second round and held the vaunted Comcast SportsNet bats in check and clubbing AOL for their fourth straight win of the day, knowing looks were exchanged among veteran MMSLers: USA Today was poised to repeat as champions.

And the Gannetoids did just that, holding off CNN 11-7 in the Championship Series Sunday to become only the third MMSL team in the league’s 17-year history to win back-to-back titles. More impressively is USA Today winning the last two titles by sweeping the tournament field.

The Gannetoids also became the second-lowest seed, behind No. 10 Post.com in 2005, to win the championship. From start to finish, through five seemingly easy victories, USA Today used a tried-and-true tournament formula: the pitching of Peter Brewington, a smart and crisp defense and the big bats of OF Dan Shomo and SS John Bratt. The champions plated 58 runs in their five wins while giving up only 26, a +6.4 difference in tournament play.

	USA Today’s Peter Brewington applies tag to CNN’s Matt Guastaferro at second base during during a critical sixth inning. The umpire ruled Guastaferro out, but upon conference with the home plate ump the call was reversed, helping the CaNiNes make a brief but late charge.

“This championship means so much because of what it took for us to even get in the tournament,” Hayes said. “Maybe even more than last year because last year I expected us to win. But this year, I think everybody knew how hard it was for us to field a team some weeks. Yet, when it counted, everybody came through.”

Hayes’ team rolled through the regular season last year with a 13-3 record, entered the playoffs as the No. 1 seed, and lived up to its billing, plowing through the tournament in four games to go down as one of the MMSL’s all-time best teams.

What a difference a year makes. The troubles started Opening Day, when the Gannetoids had to borrow players and almost forfeited both games. They continued to stumble out of the gate, winning just one of their first four games and looking pretty flat doing in the process.

With its full squad at Layhill June 2 for big games against WRC and WTTG, though, USA Today won both and sent notice to the rest of the league that it was ready to put up a fight defending its title. The Gannetoids won eight in a row at one point this season while scoring five runs less per game than last year.

Still a wild-card berth out the tough Burning Tree Division wasn’t assured until Final Day.

Meanwhile, as the season centered chiefly on the race for the No. 1 seed and the divisional championships at Wheaton Forest and Layhill,  CNN was quietly reeling off 12 straight wins to start the season. Holding the No. 3 seed, the CaNiNes’ title hopes got off to a rocky start in the playoffs with an 8-5 opening loss to corporate rival AOL. Plunging into the loser’s bracket this quickly is traditionally a brutal road to a championship.

“Demoralizing to be sure,” said CNN coach Jim Barnett. “Not the way we had envisioned the tourney.”

Barnett saw a glimmer of hope in the loss, though, as the CaNiNes — after coming out flat and anxious and not swinging the bats well — scratched and clawed their way from a 5-0 AOL lead to tie the game in the bottom of the sixth inning.

“But AOL didn't finish 12-4 for nothing,” Barnett added. “They pushed across three legitimate runs in the seventh to burst CNN's bubble right out of the gate.”

	CNN intern Cat Belanger played a solid role in the CaNiNes reaching the championship game this year with her defense and diminutive strike zone. (Photo by Skip Nocciolo)

CNN then ran off wins against AP, the Washington Post and Comcast SportsNet to make it to Sunday, where the near-impossible task of having to win four straight games to be champions. WTTG awaited in the loser’s bracket semisifinals. The Fox Trotters, the No. 2 seed and by many accounts the MMSL’s most impressive regular-season squad, had also fallen victim to AOL before knocking Team Video out of the tourney in Saturday’s last game.

The Trotters’ spirited run ended Sunday with an impressive 17-7 CNN victory. The CaNiNes blew the game open late, then dispatched AOL in the lose’s final behind the crafty pitching of Greg Robertson, the bats of Howie Lutt, Quinn Brown, John Davis and Willie Lora, and the stellar defense of RC Cat Belanger, an intern who played at George Washington, who had people talking all weekend about her range and throwing arm. She also worked opposing pitchers for several key walks, her diminutive frame posing a tough strike zone.

“She was the catalyst and the missing ingredient for us,” said Barnett. “Opposing teams, including USA Today, saw this tiny lady way out in right center and found the target too tempting to resist. Cat routinely called off our veteran outfielders and caught everything that came her way. She fired in throws to second on a laser.”

As often happens to the team coming out of the loser’s bracket, though, CNN seemed to run out of gas.

“USA Today is no slouch. I knew they would come out strong,” Barnett said. “I didn’t count on CNN players going after those tempting soft tosses by [Brewington]. We kept stressing patience at the plate, but we were swinging at the first thing we saw. When that happens, we start hitting fly balls. Our big bats went south. Too many routine plays.”

	Look at those happy Gannetoids, winners of their second consecutive Tuttle Trophy as MMSL champions. Now, can they do the unprecedented and three-peat?

“The fourth inning did us in. Did you see all those bloop hits?” Barnett said. “They killed us with the cheap stuff. We played our outfield deep to keep the balls in front of us. We were banking on preventing USA Today batters from hitting it over our heads. Sadly, it worked against us.”

The championship game box score looks strikingly similar to a year ago as SS John Bratt was 3 for 4 with 3 runs and a triple. 3b Chad Leistikow was 2 for 4 with 2 runs, a triple and 2 RBI. Hayes was 2 for 3 with a run and 2 RBI. Sharina Western, who missed Saturday’s games, was back at first base and went 2 for 4. EH Keith McMillan went 2 for 2 with an RBI, and Bob Kimball went in for Hayes and had a hit and an RBI. Elga Maye and Lisa Kiplinger also had big hits.

For the CaNiNes, it was their third second-place finish to go along with championships in 1999 and 2002. For AOL, which ruined the tournament for CNN and WTTG, it was a second straight year at third place.

After the final out, the Gannetoids embraced and exchanged congratulations, their pride evident in an accomplishment matched by only two other MMSL teams. Now they will truly try to make history.

“It was such a team effort this year,” Hayes said. “CNN did a fantastic job getting to the title game. To lose their opener and then come all the way back is something that not a lot of teams can do. They are a very worthy team, a very well-coached team, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them back on Championship Sunday a year from now. But hopefully as the runner-up as we try to three-peat!”