Fall brawl

One of the traditions of rivalry games is to hang a name on the contest. And when you have a friendly rivalry that runs as deep as the one between Central Valley and University high schools, you need a lot of names.

Basketball has the annual Stinky Sneaker game, a Greater Spokane League contest so big it is played at the Spokane Arena. Football has the Greasy Pig game and wrestling has the Battle of the Bone, a standing-room-only showdown. Soccer has the Muddy Cleat.

Now you can add one more.

Tuesday night, under a full moon and eight portable light banks, a new CV-U-Hi rivalry game was born: slow-pitch softball’s Fall Ball Brawl.

Not that CV and U-Hi need any help fueling their slow-pitch rivalry. University has won all five league championships since the sport was added to the fall lineup in 2006. The past four years, the Titans have had to beat Central Valley in the championship game.

On a cool night that threatened rain, the GSL arch-rivals played the sport’s first night game at University High in front of a packed grandstand.

Jon Schuh, the Titans’ coach for both slow-pitch and fast-pitch softball, said the idea for the game came to him over the summer.

“I was at a friend’s house and we were looking out across the valley and they were playing a softball game under the lights,” he said. “I started thinking about how great it would be to be able to play one of our softball games under the lights. I thought it could be something special.”

What made the game a reality was the donated use of eight portable light banks by Star Rentals.

“We really started (seriously) talking about doing this a couple weeks ago,” Central Valley coach Joe Stanton said. “Jon got a benefactor to donate the use of the lights and we decided to go for it – and we even gave it a name tonight so it will be a special tradition.

“I think we’re all excited about making this game an annual tradition. It’s going to be a fun game for us both.”

For this game, four lights spanned the U-Hi outfield and two each were stationed along the baselines. While the portable lights lacked the typical height of permanent field lights, they still managed to illuminate the field sufficiently for the game.

“I was a little concerned at first because the lights are a little low and I thought they might be in the hitter’s eyes,” Stanton said. “But the girls have all played under the lights before so it was no big deal to them at all. I don’t think anyone had any trouble with the lights at all.”

As novel as a night game is in slow-pitch softball, so was the outcome: CV handed the host Titans their first loss of the season, 7-3.

Through their first 12 games of the season, University had never failed to score in double figures, including a 13-10 victory at Central Valley two weeks earlier. And, aside from the 10 runs the Bears scored, University had not given up more than four runs in a game.

Under the lights, the Bears got off to an uncharacteristic fast start.

The Bears had a three-run first inning and added a key fourth run in the third to take a 4-0 lead. After U-Hi charged back with a three-run fourth inning rally, the Bears answered with three more runs in the fifth to protect their lead.

“We haven’t started fast before, so that was a surprise,” Stanton said. “I think our girls were pretty excited about the game and had some adrenalin running. They were ready to go.”

Defense proved to be key to the Fall Ball Brawl.

University committed a season-high six errors.

“That was really uncharacteristic for us,” Schuh said. “We don’t generally make those kinds of mistakes.”

Meanwhile, CV’s stalwart defense lived up to its billing. “This is far and away the best defensive team we’ve had here,” Stanton has said on many occasions.

On this night, the big glove fit on the team’s smallest hand.

Pitcher Joslynn Watkins, a junior, made a pair of defensive snags to stop potential U-Hi rallies, including a backhanded snare of a line drive by Titans first baseman, Kendra Bruno, in the sixth inning.

“She made a couple great plays for us,” Stanton said. “I think that inspired the rest of us, to be honest. Anytime you get someone making a great play like that, it picks everyone up.”

The full grandstands, evenly divided by fans from both schools, was less of an enticement, the coach laughed.

“You would think that having that many people out to watch a game would give you more of a lift, but out here on the field you can’t hear any of them,” Stanton laughed. “The generators from each one of the lights pretty much drown everything out.”