Andre Chiefs

Woburn, MA- Right-handed ace Keith Forbes picked up where he left off last season with six innings of dominating pitching,  propelling the Chiefs to their third straight win, 8-1 over the Mooney Dental Tanners on Sunday night at Ferullo Field. 

Forbes, who was making his first start of the young season, led the ICL in 2007 with 79 K’s. The former San Diego Padre allowed just three hits in an 87 pitch effort, while striking out seven. The only run he surrendered was of the unearned variety in the sixth inning.
 
The Tanners Joe Curran (Arlington, MA/Southern Maine) matched blanks with Forbes for two innings before the Chiefs broke through with four "twilight aided" runs in the top of the third. With one out, Angel Valdez reached on an infield error. Andrew Hanson remained red hot with his second single of the night to right. Cleanup man Justin Crisafulli then popped out for the inning’s second out. Mike Andre then came to the plate and delivered a RBI single to center scoring Valdez and giving the Chiefs a 1-0 lead. The twilight sky then came into play as Matt Anderson lofted what seemed to be an inning ending fly ball to short right field. The ball was lost in the dusk and fell for a two RBI double, allowing both Hanson and Andre to score making it 3-0. Déja vu when the next batter up Phil Costello hit a fly ball to center that was also lost in the tough sky, dropping for a RBI single and a 4-0 Chiefs lead.

The Chiefs added two more runs in the fifth to take a 6-0 lead. Nate Leva beat out a perfect bunt to get things going and Brendan Pyburn singled to left center putting runners on the corners with nobody out. Valdez lofted a sacrifice fly to center easily scoring Leva with the Chiefs fifth run. Hanson, who is hitting a league leading .727 (8-11), rapped his third consecutive single moving Pyburn to third. Crisafulli plated Pyburn with a RBI infield grounder.

Forbes meanwhile went sailing through the first four innings before tiring a bit in the fifth and sixth. He pitched out of a bases loaded jam in the fifth, when runners reached on an error by first baseman Paul Koslowski, a single and a walk, by getting Bentley College star Kevin Vona to ground out. He allowed a run in the sixth when Ryan Doyle reached on an error at shortstop by Brenden Shepard and scored on a RBI double off the bat of Andrew Worden.
 
The Chiefs made it an 8-1 game with two runs in the seventh on singles from Anderson, Koslowski and Leva. 

Joe Martini came on to pitch a scoreless seventh inning in his Chiefs debut, allowing one hit and striking out a batter.