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October 20 • 2016 55 Steve Stein | Contributing Writer B en Watson had a perfect year in the InterCongregational Men's Club Softball League. He played on the champion Temple Israel No. 2 team during the summer. He was the player-manager of the fall cham- pion Homeruntaschens team. Players represent their temple, syna- gogue or shul on summer teams. Fall teams are made up of players from across the community. Watson was a first-year manager after playing for the Homeruntaschens last sea- son. The new skipper needed to add a few players to his team to fill out what would become a 13-man roster. Looking for a full-time pitcher, Watson was told Greg Schwartz was available, and he brought him into the team. That was a great move. "Greg pitched just about every inning for us," Watson said. "I don't think he walked more than one or two batters in a game. He threw strikes and made guys swing at close pitches because they didn't want to strike out." Another nifty move by Watson was convincing his older brothers Jason and Andrew to join the team. In most games, the first three hitters in the Homeruntaschens' lineup were Jason, 28, Andrew, 32, and Ben, 26. "We ended up scoring the most runs (146) and giving up the fewest runs (75) of any team during the regular season," Watson said. "That's a difficult combina- tion to beat." There were six teams in the four-year- old fall league, the same as the previous three years. Homeruntaschens (9-1) earned the top seed in the playoffs during the regu- lar season followed by the Jeters (7-3), Bad News Jews (6-4), Marble Rye (4-6), Kosher Ribs (2-8) and the Sandlot (2-8). The Sandlot beat Bad News Jews 13-11 and Kosher Ribs beat Marble Rye 13-1 in playoff games Oct. 2 at Drake Sports Park in West Bloomfield, the league's home, to reduce the field to a final four for Oct. 9. Homeruntaschens defeated the Sandlot 19-7 and Kosher Ribs upset Jeters 13-10 in semifinal games. There was no surprise in the championship game, won 20-8 by Homeruntaschens over Kosher Ribs. The Sandlot beat Jeters 14-10 in the third- place game. Also on the Homeruntaschens roster were Brad Goldman, Michael Bloch, Grant Kravitz, Kevin Potocsky, Mark Jacobs, Dan Lippitt, Garett Segal, David Henkin and Adam Eisenberg. The other player-managers were Victor Uzansky and Kenny Walters (Jeters), Steve Achtman (Bad News Jews), Richard Jacobs (Marble Rye), Matt Bassin (Kosher Ribs) and Elon Friedman (The Sandlot). There were about 80 players in the league. Achtman runs the league. He said he keeps it to six teams so his work is manageable. Teams keep the same nucleus each sea- son and add players as players drop out. Fun and camaraderie are the main rea- sons for the league, Atchman said, but it is competitive. "When you get 80 Jewish guys playing softball, they all want to win," he said. Ben Watson agreed. "The league is competitive," he said, "but not over the top." POWERFUL STUFF Robert Morris University sophomore Eric Israel from Huntington Woods was named the Atlantic Hockey Conference defenseman of the week for the weekend of Oct. 7-8. Israel scored a goal and assisted on three others in Robert Morris' wild 6-5 win Oct. 8 over host Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology during the open- ing weekend of the conference's season. Down 5-1 in the second period, Robert Morris scored four straight power-play goals within 1:52 and Israel was involved in all four of them. "It was a fun couple of minutes," he told U.S. College Hockey Online. Israel played for the renowned Honeybaked youth teams in the Detroit area before spending two seasons with the Brockville (Ont.) Braves of the Central Canada Hockey League. He had 99 points (27 goals, 70 assists) in 130 games with the Braves before heading to Robert Morris, which is located in Moon, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh. * Send sports news to stevestein502004@yahoo.com. sports » Hail The Homeruntaschens! 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