Leading into the bottom of the eighth inning, the Fightin' Phils were down by four and fans everywhere collectively wondered if their team had any fight left in them. With Garrett Mock pitching for the Nationals, the fans looked on as the Phillies slowly got men on base looking to turn to tide.
With Jimmy Rollins sitting on second after a double and Pedro Feliz waiting on third, none other than the Flyin' Hawaiian stepped up to the plate. Victorino would end up hitting a sacrifice fly that would send Feliz home and shorten the gap to 11-8.
As Rollins moved into position at third, Chase Utley stepped up and singled to right field, allowing Rollins to score and get the stadium on its feet. In an effort to stifle the momentum, the Nationals took Mock out and put Joel Hanrahan on the mound. Making mistakes early on, Hanrahan would allow Utley to make it to second on a wild pitch and ended up walking both Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth.
At this point, each of the 41,620 fans in attendance were waiting for another miracle. We were already lucky enough to see Ryan Howard nail a grand slam in the bottom of the fifth, now, if Raul Ibanez could pull off the same feat, we would not only close the gap, but also be winning by two. Sure enough, Raul sent one sailing as the stadium erupted all around him and the four Phillies made their way home.
Ibanez, picked up in the offseason by the Phils, showcased his true value when he proved to every last fan in attendance that he could make it happen if the team needs him too. As the inning drew to a close on a Matt Stairs strikeout, an unforeseen victory was now only three outs away.
Ryan Madsen stepped up to the mound and, sure enough, closed out the game. In the end, the Fightin' Phils proved that they truly are a force to be reckoned with and that you cannot count them out of a game. Ever.
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So...just when I thought we couldn't progress forward from the previous status of "friggin' great day," the 76ers decided to throw me for a loop and decided to beat the Orlando Magic tonight. In the first game of the Conference Quarterfinals, we ended up overcoming an 18-point deficit to upset the #3 seed Magic. It all came down to Andre Iguodala to break the tie with less than half of a minute left and he managed to pull away from Hedo Turkoglu for an instant and nailed the shot. Three Philadelphia teams currently in their seasons and each of them took home a win today. Wow....I love this city! Today is a good day. Wait, you know what? Scratch that. Today is a friggin' great day! I am by no means a diehard baseball fan, but I really do love the Phillies. As I mentioned in my Opening Day 2009 article, in the bottom of the seventh, the Phils were down 10-3. I was certain that Philadelphia would not be able to pull out the win, so I went back to relaxing and watching Rocky V. I had the TV volume low, but I noticed quite a bit of action out of my peripheral vision, and decided to see what was up. Out of nowhere, the score was now 10-7. April is here and to fans across America, that signifies the start of baseball season as well. The Fightin' Phils are back and well, they're not doing spectacular, but hey, there's still 160 games left right? There's something inherently special about March Madness, I just can't get enough of it. Now, it's the beginning of April and we find ourselves getting ready for the Final Four match-ups to take place this Saturday. When it comes to any branch of sports, I really do enjoy picking the winners of games. It's a interesting experience to break down games piece by piece and then see how well you did. With that in mind, I plan on doing that a lot more now, to add some more depth to the Sports blog here. So, let's get started. In a society that demands perfection in every sense of the word, we are consistently encouraged to perform better than all others, to be “ahead of the curve.” With such pressure upon us, it is inevitable that some will attempt to make that journey easier through questionable means. But how far would you go to achieve greatness? When the last shred of confetti fell after the Super Bowl and the Pittsburgh Steelers walked off with their sixth Lombardi trophy, the majority of the action was done. The NFL season was over and fans across the country fell into depression as the six month wait for preseason play began. We did it! I didn't think we could pull it off, but we did and now we're headed down to Miami for the first game of our tournament, against #6 Arizona St. Now, if we make it past this game, we'll likely play #3 Syracuse, but we'll just take it one game at a time. Congrats to the team and good luck! With wins against St. Joe's and nationally-ranked Xavier, Temple now finds itself in the Atlantic 10 Championship yet again! |
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Record: 11-8, 2nd place
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