Lightning, Storms delay Day Two of Wheelchair Softball World Series
Weather and lightning suspended the Wheelchair Softball World Series on Friday afternoon.
It’ll take a few more hours on Saturday — and some reshuffling around — to determine a champion at the Mall of America north parking lot in Bloomington, Minn.
After a thunderstorm and consistent lightning in the area, Wheelchair Softball World Series officials announced just past 4 p.m. Friday that play was suspended the rest of the day.
It still left what teams will be in the finals undecided.
The top-seeded and defending champion Minnesota Rolling Twins and No. 2-seeded Nebraska Barons each won their third-round games and were supposed to play at 4 p.m. Friday in a semifinal. But that game was moved to Saturday morning at a to-be-determined time. It also left the rest of the consolation bracket in Division I, along with games in Division II and Division III, in flux.
Earlier on Thursday morning, Minnesota escaped with an 8-5 victory over the No. 4-seeded LWSRA Hawks. The Rolling Twins trailed 1-0 to start, then built a 7-1 lead before LWSRA rallied twice, once in the top of the fourth inning and another in the bottom of the seventh.
In fact, trailing 8-4 in the top of the seventh inning, the Hawks made things interesting. With baserunners on second and third, LWSRA’s Dan Palmer recorded an RBI groundout to cut the deficit to three. And it left two runners on base with two outs. But the Hawks hit a hard shot at Rolling Twins shortstop Jeff Gustafson, who bobbled the ball, got it back and launched a throw to first base to seal the win.
Minnesota pitcher Jason Miller, who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, says the top of the fourth got weird — but acknowledged the Twins’ defense helped save him.
“I made some good pitches and my defense made some amazing plays. And we got out of the jam,” says the 49-year-old Miller. “And so, it was like, ‘OK, now we can just relax and take a deep breath and let’s go get this.’”
Meanwhile, Nebraska started off a bit slow, too, leading just 2-0 against the No. 3-seeded Columbus Pioneers after three innings. That is until Paul Krabbenhoft and Josh Maier got the Barons going in the bottom of the fourth inning.
Krabbenhoft hit an RBI single, and Maier added a bases-clearing two-RBI triple to help the Barons. They scored nine runs in the inning and won the game, 11-0, in five innings.
For the 31-year-old Maier, wheelchair softball means everything. He was born with spina bifida and loves baseball. He always wanted a chance to play, and once he got started in 2007 with the Nebraska Junior Barons in junior wheelchair softball, it gave him a way to live out his baseball-playing dream. He grew up watching the MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals games with his dad, Mike, and was a big Albert Pujols and Jim Edmonds fan.
“And I really liked watching Albert because he was our best hitter. But I loved watching Jim Edmonds for the the outfield heroics he would perform, whether it’s a diving catch or over-the-head catch, just always being at the right place at the right time and being just a central figure on that team,” says Maier, an Omaha, Neb., resident. “So, being a baseball fan, I wanted to be kind of like him. And that wasn’t necessarily possible dealing with spina bifida and trying to play against kids my own age, until I found wheelchair softball in the summer of 2007 and started playing it with basically all my basketball team. It was a way for us to stay in shape over the summer.”
National Wheelchair Softball World Series
Division I
No. 1 Minnesota Rolling Twins 8, No. 4 LWSRA Hawks 5
No. 2 Nebraska Barons 11, No. 3 Columbus Pioneers 0 (5 innings)
Consolation Bracket
No. 8 Kansas City Royals Wheelchair Softball Team 10, No. 10 Minnesota Flamethrowers 2
No. 12 San Antonio Parasport Spurs 6, No. 6 Shepherd Sluggers 5
No. 9 Deep South Hurricanes 4, No. 7 Chicago Wheelchair Cubs 3
No. 11 Ability360 Arizona Diamondbacks 15, No. 13 STRAPS 0
No. 8 Kansas City Royals Wheelchair Softball Team 5, San Antonio ParaSport Spurs 1
No. 11 Ability360 Arizona Diamondbacks 13, No. 9 Deep South Hurricanes 1
No. 8 Kansas City Royals Wheelchair Softball Team 4, No. 3 Columbus Pioneers 0
No. 4 LWSRA Hawks 11, No. 11 Ability360 Arizona Diamondbacks 7