40 Dana players and their families came out to share fun, food, and most of all softball for two games on Memorial Day.

In the 9:30 game, manager Rich Tapia stacked his team with both his son and Norm Young’s three sons. They easily dispatched Pat Canney’s team, despite the solid center field defense from Brian Lamb’s daughter Teagan. Dave Hunt and Dax Young each had two home runs for the winning team.

In the second game, a more methodical choice of teams resulted in a close game with Dave Tessmer’s team down only two runs in the final innings. Rich Tapia, who snuck into the second game, was the last batter and he came through, driving in the winning run to send Randy Gage’s team to a one run defeat. For the most part, the women in these two games, Angela Tessmer-Wagner, Megan Church, Krista Rask, and Jillian Robinson, out-played the men.

Subsequently, Rules Commissioner Norm Young was besieged with requests to lower the legal age for women wanting to play at Dana to 19. We all eagerly await his answer.

Photos of many of the family members who played with us today are on the web site under Photos – MemorialDay2016.

The league will consider having another set of family games on Monday July 4.

                At various points in the season, both the Diehards and Squirrels occupied last place in the standings.  A contoversial mid-season assignment of Randy Gage gave the Red team new life and they surged to a 3 way tie for first place by season's end.  Meanwhile, the Squirrels finally installed Joe Juhasz at shortstop and he helped anchor a late season comeback as the Squirrels finished 5th.

 In week 1 of the playoffs,  the Squirrels beat Navy Blue 13-11 and then walloped the Grey Ghosts 17-9 to advance to the 2nd week of playoffs.  The X-Men, winners of the first playoff game in Week 1, fell to the Diehards 14-5 who then also advanced to the final week.

Game 1 of the semifinals pitted the Diehards against the Greenhuts.   Green got out to a quick 5-0 lead but lost their early momentum while Red came to life.  Final score Red 18 Green 8.   In the other semifinal game, the Squirrels scored 10 in their first two at bats.  Purple answered with just 2, but then held the Squirrels scoreless in the next two innings.  Alas, Purple could only peck away and found themsleves still down by six in the bottom of the 8th.  They went scoreless again, the Squirrels added two more and it was just too much.  Final score 19-13 as the Squirrels won their 3rd playoff game in a row.  Could they make it four?

In the championship game, the Squirrels won the toin coss and elected to be home team.  It would be a fateful choice as for the third game in a row, the visiting team would prevail.  The game was close for a while but then the Diehards pulled away while the Squirrels seemed to go into a late winter hibernation.   Final score, Red Diehards 27, Squirrels 16.