Latest Gears News
7/29/99
Bill Moore, Head Coach for the Garden of Gears, has announced that the team will travel to Tucson, Arizona to play the Canadian National Junior Team on August 2nd and 3rd. Each game will be a 9 inning exhibition and begin at 7:00PM. The contests are scheduled to be played at Hi-Corbett Stadium in Tucson. Hi-Corbett is the home of USA Baseball.
7/26/99
The Gears just completed a memorable run at the State Championship. We finished the week at 4-2. The week started off with a 6-0 victory over the number 2 seed from Tucson. J.J. Jackson (Chandler) had a no-hitter through 6 1/3 innings. He gave up two hits in the seventh but kept the shutout. After a tough loss to the Baseball Academy on Thursday, the Gears faced elimination on Friday night. But the players responded with a resounding 9-5 win against the Rustlers earning a season sweep of five games. The Gears continued to roll with an impressive drubbing of the Baseball Academy Saturday night. The offense put up a seven spot in the first and cruised to a 12-1 win. Saturday's win clinched a spot in the Championship round against the Firebirds on Sunday. The Gears took the first game 7-5. Brian Bannister (Chaparral) pitched 2 1/3 innings in relief and picked up the victory. The Gears fell in the Final however, losing 7-4. The Gears finished the Summer Connie Mack season as the State Runner-up and compiled a 24-20 record.
7/20/99
The final two games of the regular season were cancelled. The Gears have qualified for the State Tournament. We are the #3 seed from Phoenix and we will play the #2 seed from Tucson on Wednesday July 21st at 5:30PM at Maryvale Complex.
7/19/99
The past week was one of the better of the season for the Gears. We finished the week with a 3-1 record and all four of the games were in league. The week began with a doubleheader sweep of the Rustlers on Tuesday. Billy Robertson (Corona) pitched six strong innings in the opener and the Gears won 7-3. Drew Hassler (Arcadia) pitched a scoreless seventh. Zach Bies (Chaparral) was 4-4 with 3 RBI. He needed a double in the sixth for the cycle but slipped rounding first after hitting a ball down the left field line. In the nightcap, the Gears cruised to a 7-0 victory behind a 4-hit shutout from Ryan McCally (Mountain Pointe). Ryan struck out 10 and did not walk a batter. The Gears had two hits each from Logan Sorensen (Bingham, UT) and Joey Reiman (Apollo). After rainouts on Wednesday and Thursday, the Gears made thier annual trip to Flagstaff on Saturday. The first game was a slugfest that the Gears won 24-22. The combined runs broke a club record of 44 from 1993. Chris Gill (Camelback) homered twice and Zach Bies and Kenny Gram (Marcos de Niza) added one each. Gill also recorded the win and Billy Robertson earned the save. In the second game, the bats were quieter and we lost a tough one 6-5. We had runners at first and third with no outs in the seventh and failed to score. We are now (20-18,7-5).
7/12/99
The Gears endured another tough week winning one of four. We played a doubleheader against Parma, Ohio on Wednesday. Parma travels to Phoenix every other year to play the Gears and other teams on a "West Coast swing". We never led in either game and lost 10-9 and 11-4. We followed the doubleheader with a tough loss on Friday to the Arizona Baseball Academy. The game was tied 4-4 heading to the seventh but the ABA scored two and shut us out in the bottom of the inning. We got a good pitching effort from Chris Gill (Camelback) but couldn't get him the win. The week ended on a high note. We beat the Mavericks on Sunday 9-1. It was our first league game in four weeks and was the first of seven straight. Sean Rierson (Chaparral) pitched a complete game. The Gears now stand at (17-17,4-4).
7/5/99
The Gears just completed their annual trip to Farmington, New Mexico for the 27th Annual Fourth of July Invitational. As a warm-up for the tournament we played (Scottsdale) Horizon on Monday. We played our best defensive game of the year and Billy Robertson (Corona) allowed only 1 walk in seven innings. We scattered four hits and won 5-0. Tuesday was an off-day and most of us used Wednesday to make the seven-hour trek to the Four Corners. We finished with a 2-2 overall record and a fourth place finish. The Gears won the tournament opener over the Farmington (NM) Cobras by a score of 6-3. Scott Burns (Chaparral) got the win. In the second of three pool games, we lost to the (Tucson) Sabino Sabercats 10-2. In our final pool game, we beat the Dallas Knights 14-5. We finished second in our pool and faced the (Phoenix) Mavericks in the third place game. We held an 8-5 lead after 5 and 1/2 innings, but the Mavericks scored 3 in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game. Relief pitching took over and the game was still 8-8 going to the 12th. We took the lead with a solo home run from Gabe Mayorga (Mountain Pointe) but the Mavericks answered in the home half. Their leadoff hitter hit a double off the wall and the next hitter laced a two-run homer to give the Mavericks third place and the Gears a disappointing fourth. Our record is now 16-14 overall and 3-4 in league.
6/28/99
The Gears were 2-2 this past week and moved to 13-12 overall. Our scheduled game on the 21st was cancelled and after three days off we began play in the City of Phoenix Firecracker Invitational. We were four time defending Champions but lost our opener against the Firebirds. We bounced back and beat the (Scottsdale) Snappers and Phoenix Chrsitian and qualified for the championship bracket. We were the number two seed from our pool and played Zona, the number one seed from the other pool. We had an early lead and came back to tie or take the lead three times before falling 13-9. We finished third in the tournament.
