Baseball / Ra'anana, Modi'in swap dominating performances to set up final showdown

The Ra'anana Green Machine and Cup O' Joe Modi'in split a pair of ball games this week in the i2i Stream Premier League's championship playoff round, setting up a winner-take-all showdown Monday night at the Baptist Village's Yarkon Field.

Cup O' Joe took game one of the series by a score of 9-4, paced by MLB European Academy graduate and Israeli national team standout Alon Leichman, who hurled seven strong innings, striking out 13 while allowing just two hits.

Down 1-0 in the second inning, the Javamen took the lead thanks to base hits by Yoseph Bentley, Ira Moskowitz and Ariel Moyal, accompanied by a Ra'anana throwing error. Ilan Suskind's sacrifice fly, scoring Leichman, gave Modi'in a 3-1 lead after three. With Ra'anana unable to mount a serious offensive threat, all that remained was for Modi'in to take advantage of more Ra'anana defensive miscues to pull away in the final innings.

Two nights later, with their backs to the wall, the Green Machine turned the tables, taking the lead in the first inning and never looking back, winning 17-4. Ra'anana's U.S. college players and Israeli national team teammates, Daniel Maddy-Weitzman (Haverford College) and Moishe Lewis (U. of Rochester), sparked the offensive surge with seven hits between them. Together with their younger national team compatriot Ronen Kornberg they also shut down the Modi'in offense, with Lewis picking up the win for five innings of work.

Earlier, Ra'anana had reached the finals by knocking out the top-seeded defending champion Tel Aviv Comrades 15-11.

Ra'anana had trailed 11-8 going to the last inning, but Yoandray Gil-Levi's bases loaded triple highlighted a seven-run outburst.

In the bottom of the inning Tel Aviv loaded the bases with two outs, bringing the tying run to the plate. At that point, in a quirk of the rules, the game had to be suspended owing to length.

All that remained was to regather the teams before game one of the final round and resume play. Gil-Levi's five-pitch strikeout of the Tel Aviv batsman sealed the win. In consolation round play, the Junior Maccabiah Team surprised Tel Aviv with a solid 12-3 win.

The Monday night finale is scheduled for 7 P.M.