Magic needs to be surprising. Something that makes you forget where you are and what you're looking at. It also needs to be so well-prepared that it looks effortless. It needs to look implausible, but plausible enough that you accept it as truth. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:
Ko-oren 4 4 0 0 2 1 5 0 0 16
Nova Anglicana 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 3
It was everything. Surprising, prepared, effortless, implausible, but here we are. The Greenblues have secured a lead in the Nova Anglicana series, a team ranked fourth in the world. Ko-oren at first looked beaten before the first pitch was thrown just looking at the immense gap between Nova Anglicana's perceived power and our own. It's already been a great tournament, between a nine-game winning streak, beating Hampton for first place, fight off a possible three-way tie... all for it to seemingly end when the dust settled and the group standings were finalised. As the 10th best group winner, we're up against the 7th best seeded team - Nova Anglicana. This was supposed to be a tournament they could win. We were just happy to make the second round. But now that we're there, and we've literally ventured into the Lions' den, why not aim even higher?
The hitting has been going up for a while, and even then Ko-oren finished the group stage as one of the lower scoring teams. Preventing runs was something we could do, between pitching, relieving and improving infield play. The infield was named as a potential weakness, but the team gradually improved and now find Sivurila at first base effortlessly. If an opposing batter even gets to run in the first place.
Both teams rested for a few days before taking off for Cassadaigua, and both teams could start their number one pitchers. For the Lions, this was Lawson. For the Dragonflies, Brands started. An arsenal of different pitches like Lawson's isn't something you'll see in Ko-oren. Here, pitchers tend to have 2-3 preferred styles, and once the magic wears off, they walk back to the bullpen.
In Victoriaville, the evening started and floodlights lit the diamond as Lawson wound up for the first time. Durand raised his bat - knowing whatever Lawson pitches, it'll either be straight or turning away from him - and swung. It looked to be at good height, didn't deviate from what Durand could see in the split second before the ball would hit the catcher's glove. It was a cutter, but it didn't matter: Durand hit it in fair territory, between the first and second baseman. It didn't come straight at him, else he'd hit it directly towards shortstop. Durand's speed came in handy as he got to first base before Glover could return it to Bryan. One pitch, one hit, and that was that. It takes more than that to rattle someone like Lawson, though.
Ritsushima stepped up, adjusted to the light out here in the middle of the floodlights, raised his bat, and tried to get some anchor points to focus on while Lawson looked straight through him for his catcher's signal. A slider, but Ritsushima saw it coming, hit it downwards into the field, and it rolled-bounced on beyond the infield. Durand found second base, Ritsushima made it to first - two pitches, two hits.
It can't always stay like that, and Lawson struck out next one in line. Tasu Shiro then came up, hit a double well over the heads of Moran and later Deng. Ko-oren was now up 1-0 and it would all get better from here. Umemura went to first but didn't advance his teammates, Kagulazaka brought in Ritsushima and Shiro. Kagulazaka attempted a steal, but it was a foolish attempt and picked off by Lawson. Viera earned a walk, then Sivurila brought home Umemura but was out himself. 4-0, first inning. What a start.
Only for the same thing to happen next inning. Lawson was taken off after the third inning, but it didn't stop there. Bowers came in, stopped the onslaught but gave away 2, 1 and then 5 runs. It looked like the Ko-orenites saw through every single signal, every pitch, and placed their bats perfectly while doing so. In the end, there were 16 runs scored by the Greenblues. That's one sixth of the entire Ko-orenite production in 24 group stage games. That's one sixth of the entire Ko-orenite production in 24 group stage games.
Brands pitched lights-out, as did his relievers. The closing, one of several Achilles' heels of this team, didn't let us down - with a 13 run cushion.
The second game featured Kumagaya for us, and Singleton for Nova Anglicana.
Ko-oren 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 3
Nova Anglicana 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 2
And this one turned into a marathon. Both teams were cautious of the endless stream of runs presented on the previous day, and shifting infields, timeouts, and endless back-and-forths between pitcher and catcher followed. This resulted in a 0-0 score on the board after seven innings, when the Lions finally opened the score in the bottom of the eighth - with a single run. In the crucial top of the ninth, Ko-oren finally got one player back to base, and the score was 1-1 after nine - you can't imagine a bigger opposite to the proceedings of 24 hours before that. The tenth started off decently for both teams, the closers aren't used to pitching this much (at least, our closers aren't, games may end in ties in the domestic leagues) and it was 2-2 after the inning. More tactical play followed, and we were in the 13th inning when there was another base hit. Shiro hit a double, Umemura got him to third, and Kagulazaka managed a perfectly placed hit to bring him in - 3-2. Nova Anglicana were struck out efficiently on the final three outs, and Ko-oren are leading 2-0 in a series that we predicted would go completely the other way.
Melle will start game three, as normal. Things will have to change for the Lions and they aren't the experienced team they are without knowing how to switch things up. We're curious to see if the Greenblues can clean this up in game three or game four - or if the Lions can match their status and take this to game 5.