1990: BACK-TO-BACK CHAMPS

Brewers 15 , Bad Loads 5

August 8th 1990

Game #3 - DVFL Championship Series

Brewers vs. Bad Loads at Devereaux

The defending DVFL Champion Brewers had struggled in the early going of the 1990 season, starting the year with a 3-4 record. That included a pair of losses to their arch-rivals, the Bad Loads.

But the Brew Crew came to life and then some, winning the final 13 games of the regular season to finish in 2nd place behind the Loads with a 16-4 record. The streak was the longest regular season winning streak ever by the club. It helped the Brewers set a team record for wins in a regular season as well. But as we all knew, great regular seasons don't have to translate into championships.

In the DVFL Semi-Finals the Brewers stretched the overall winning streak to 16 straight with an amazing 3-0 sweep of McGuire's, a veteran team that was always a factor and who always made it tough on the Brewers. That sweep came by scores of 8-5, 7-0 and 8-2. All of this still only meant that the club had to get over the Bad Loads hump if they were to repeat as DVFL Champs.

Despite their great, intense rivalry, the Loads and Brewers had met only once before in the playoffs. The Bad Loads had nipped the Brewers by 2-1 in a hard-fought 1987 semi-finals series enroute to the first of back-to-back titles for the Loads.

Much was at stake in these 1990 DVFL Finals. The Brew Crew were trying to repeat as champions. The Loads were going for their third title in four years. The winners would most certainly gain bragging rights as the best team in DVFL history along with the Championship title.

The Brewers had gained tremendous confidence during the streak, and shrugged off their two early-season losses to the Loads by taking the first two games of the Finals. The club won the opener by scoring four times in the top of the 7th, stretching a 3-2 lead into a 7-2 victory. Then we took a stranglehold on the series with a big 6-5 win in game two, when Ray Emery's sac fly scored Chris Novak with the winning run in the bottom of the 7th. Thus the Brewers were on the verge of claiming the 1990 DVFL Championship, and the title of being the league's top team in recent years.

The Loads sent ace Jay Staiber to the mound for the third straight game, trying to avoid elimination and change the series momentum. The Brewers had Ray Emery on the mound. He had out-dueled Staiber in the opener, and Adrian Kosteleski had won a heroic Game Two.

Staiber had a great deal of historical success against the Brewers, and the Loads had to be thinking that there was no way the Brewers could take three in a row from their ace.

The Brewers offense wasted little time in getting to Staiber, scoring three times in the 1st inning. RBI singles by Tom Novak and Emery and a sac fly by Jimmy Adams made it 3-0 quickly.

The club kept up the pressure with three more in the 2nd inning. Vince Menello drilled an RBI triple, then scored on an error on the same play. Chris Novak followed with a solo homer, and it was a 6-0 game.

The 3rd inning proved to be more of the same, as the Brew Crew put up another three-spot. The Novak brothers did it again this inning, with Chris providing a sac fly and Tom nailing a two-out, two-run double that stretched the lead out to 9-0.

The game appeared over before it had barely even begun, but the Bad Loads were now playing more on anger and embarrassment than for a chance to win, and they had one more shot of pride left.

The Loads shut the Brewers down in order in the 4th for the only time in the game, and in the bottom of the inning their bats finally came alive. They used four hits, a walk and an error to put together a four-run inning that seemed to stabilize the game at 9-4. It also gave them some hope that if they could just hold the Brewers down the rest of the way, they could rally. But the Brewers would waste little time answering.

In the top of the 5th the Brew Crew regained the momentum thanks to veteran team captain Frank Gleason, who drilled a bases-loaded triple. When the dust had cleared, all three runners had crossed the plate, and the Brewer lead was up to 12-4.

The Loads got one back in the bottom of the 5th, but the Brewers kept answering, scoring one of their own in the top of the 6th on Joe Gessner's pinch-hit rbi single that made it 13-5. In the top of the 7th, the Brewers put the final nails in the Bad Loads coffin when Chris Novak's RBI single and pinch-hitter Adrian Kosteleski's RBI groundout scored another pair to stretch the lead out to 15-5.

Ray Emery took the mound for the bottom of the 7th, and having also been the manager for this 1990 team, he took the mound for likely his crowning moment.

Emery retired the Loads 1-2-3 with the final out on a fly ball to Menello in right, and the Brewers celebrated their "Back-to-Back" titles on the field at Devereaux. This marked the only one of the team's six DVL Championships that would not be won at Ryan high school. It would also give the Brew Crew the title of the DVFL's best team in addition to the 1990 DVFL Championship.