Blue Eagles One-And-Done In SCBL Playoff Opener
Web Posted July 20, 2010
The Herald Journal

SPARTANBURG, S.C. - It took more than six weeks to build an impressive resume and less than three hours to shred the thing.

The Spartanburg Blue Eagles, who compiled 21 victories since the beginning of June to claim the regular season championship in the West Division of the Southern Collegiate Baseball League, were finished after the first playoff game.

In a baffling single-elimination postseason format, Spartanburg lost Monday night to the worst team in the division, the Carolina Chaos from Clemson, 4-1, at Russell C. King Field on the Wofford College campus.

Before the team’s postgame meeting in the outfield broke up with handshakes and hugs, the bases were already put away in storage.

“I hate that it ended the way it did,” Spartanburg head coach Ryan Thomas said. “But in a one-game playoff, anything can happen. You have a team that struggled during the regular season (3-15 against the division), but they were the better team tonight and they won. That’s the way it rolls.”

Carolina used its best starting pitcher, Michael Hanzlik (3.09 ERA) from Gardner-Webb, and a top reliever, Kyle McGuire (2.45) from Wesley College, to frustrate the Spartanburg batters. The Blue Eagles had seven hits (two each by USC Upstate players Gaither Bumgardner and Brody Greer), only a pair of safeties after the second inning.

The Chaos, who advanced to another single-elimination game tonight on the road, got single runs in the first, second, fourth and fifth. Luke Danielewicz, a former Dorman High School standout now with Erskine, drove in the final run.

“We’ve been struggling all season and to finally win a big game like this made everybody pretty excited,” Danielewicz said. “We were able to stick it out for nine whole innings. … We’re a good team. We really are. We finally played like we were capable of playing.”

He and his teammates, of course, had no problem with the single-elimination style of the SCBL division championship round.

“We love this format,” Danielewicz said.

Spartanburg left the bases loaded in the second and had them full again in the fifth after beating out a bunt back to Hanzlik on a close and controversial play at third base. Hanzlik had some words for the umpire after his call, some words for the Blue Eagles’ dugout after escaping the jam without allowing a run and still more words for their third-base coach after being lifted the next inning.

Hanzlik, it turned out, had the last words. After the game, the teams exchanged handshakes and a few more unpleasantries.

“It was emotional on both sides,” Thomas said. “When you play all summer and it’s hot and you go through that all summer long, tensions are going to be a little high. I felt like their guy was pumping adrenaline and he was good. He made a little comment toward our dugout and our guys got riled up. I got upset with our guys. My thing is bring the intensity between the lines and not with your fists.”

Leaving the bases loaded for the second time in five innings took most of the life out of the Blue Eagles. They reached base only twice more on an infield single and a hit-by-pitch.

“(The fifth inning was) when we needed something to happen,” Thomas said. “And when it didn’t happen, you could almost feel the air come out.”