Slides and dirt-stained pants were a common theme for 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment’s Rock Force Wednesday night as it defeated the Maneuver Center of Excellence 20-5 at Engineer Field. Rock Force improved to 4-0 and ran at will, stealing nine bases while taking advantage of several infield errors by MCoE. The game was called in the bottom of the fourth inning due to a one-hour time limit. Rock Force aggressively ran the bases and took an extra base at every opportunity. Singles turned into doubles and doubles turned into triples and inside-the-park home runs on two occasions.
“It’s the way we practice,” said Brian Hamm, Rock Force head coach and 2/19 command sergeant major. “It’s a part of the game a lot of teams don’t practice in slow pitch softball. It was a good game for us in base stealing and hitting.”
Rock Force scored two runs in the bottom of the first inning and MCoE responded with two of its own in the top of the second. Rock Force blew the game open with an 11-run second inning, which included nine consecutive runs without making an out.
Hamm and Michael Cullotta each hit an inside-the-park home run while Rick Toms had two stolen bases in the inning.
“We usually start off slow, but for some reason the bats worked and we got on a roll,” Toms said. “That was a momentum thing. We started to get it rolling and no one wanted to be that guy to ruin the inning.”
Cullotta finished the game with three RBIs and two runs while Toms stole four bases, scored two runs and had an RBI.
Rock Force finished fourth in the Commander’s Cup Preseason Softball Tournament, which was won by the 11th Engineer Battalion Jungle Cats.
Toms said he believes Rock Force is an improved team since the preseason tournament because key players who are driving the team now were not available for the preseason tournament.
“The original nucleus we all planned on is together now,” Toms said.
Five teams dropped from softball league Five teams were dropped from the Intramural Softball League Thursday in accordance with the Fort Benning Commander’s Cup memorandum of instruction as a result of forfeiting two games. Under the guidelines, a team that forfeits two games is dropped from the league and forfeits all Commander’s Cup points for that sport.
Willie Spann, coordinator of Sports, Fitness &Aquatics, said the forfeited games were early signs of a disinterest in playing.
Spann said any wins or losses from the games played by the dropped teams will stand and teams scheduled to play any of the dropped teams will automatically receive a win for the remainder of the season.
When league play began on June 7, there were 32 teams. That number is now 27, spread out over three divisions: the “pothole,” the “tussell” and the “stovepipe.”
