Lasorda Division Claims Title of ABL's Best

The second round of matches were concluded in the match-up between the teams of the Tommy Lasorda Division and the teams from the Sparky Anderson Division, for the unofficial title of the ABL's best division.  The Lasorda Division carried a large lead into this week's matches, leading 16-8.

The first match seemed a formality as Eureka, winless in these matches to date, hosted first place Nottinghamshire. But as so often been the case, home field advantage was important as Eureka won the series from Nottinghamshire 9-4, 3-7 and 4-0.


Second place New York played host to second place Las Vegas and again the home field advantage held with New York taking the series, 9-2, 8-4, 3-6.

First place Mile High traveled to Dallas to take on the fourth place Texans. And as had happened to Nottinghamshire, the first place Mustangs couldn't handle the Texans on the road, with Dallas winning 4-2, 4-2, 5-8.

Finally, it was two third place teams, Ann Arbor and Kansas City in the final set. Ann Arbor had not lost a game to the Anderson division, as with the other matches the home side Tornadoes prevailed 7-6, 0-8, 12-0.

So all home sides won 2 games to 1, which meant as in week 1 the first set was tied at 6 wins apiece.

That left the final set of matches for the season.

The Anderson teams need wins and first place Mile High, broke the home field trend by traveling to Ann Arbor (the week 1 heroes) and winning the series 9-8 (14), 4-5, 7-4.

Last place Eureka kept the division hopes alive by taking it's home series with second place New York 1-3, 5-3, 9-2. Enabling Eureka to win both series against the top Lasorda division teams.

Second place Kansas City hosted Dallas, but could hold the home field. They rallied from 4-2 in the third game to win 5-4 and avoid the sweep as Dallas won the first two games 5-3 and 7-1.

That left first place Nottinghamshire hosting Las Vegas. All three matches were close well pitched contests but in the end it was an Outlaw sweep 4-2, 2-0, 3-1.  Match 2 was particularly difficult for Las Vegas as they had 11 hits but failed to score.

That meant the Lasorda won the last set of series 7-5 resulting in a final tally of Lasorda 29 Anderson 19.

Individual team performances were as follows:

Nottinghamshire 8-4
Ann Arbor 8-4
Dallas 7-5
New York 6-6
Mile High 6-6
Kansas City 5-7
Las Vegas 4-8
Eureka 4-8

Leaving little doubt that the Tommy Lasorda division is the toughest division in the ABL.