On another beautiful Saturday morning at New Scotland, the Cubs improved their record to 3-0, with a 7-2 victory over the defending champion Dodgers.

The game opened like a championship prize fight where both the combatants each landed early haymakers.

The Dodgers first two hitters (Mick Novac and Mark Hitch****) led off the game with singles and scored, later in the inning, on a sacrafice fly by Ryan Johnson and an RBI single by Jim Keegan.

The Cubs took that punch and countered by getting their first four hitters on and base and around to score. Shawn Maney worked a leadoff walk. Steve Lounello singled. Mike Girard was walked on four pitches, and Andy Hoyle delivered a 2 run double. After Mick Novac got the dangerous Ron Lochner on a comebacker, Dave Mitchell followed with a two run double of his own, to give the Cubs a 4-2 lead after one inning.

The difference in this game was that Ron Massaroni continued to hang zeroes on the scoreboard against one of the leagues' toughest line-ups.
Mazz ended up pitching 6 full innings, giving up just 6 hits (all singles) and no walks, while hitting one Dodgers' batter and striking out 5. Steve Lounello came on to pitch the 7th inning without surrendering a hit. Steve walked one and struck out one.

The Cubs managed two more runs in the 4th inning and an unearned run in the fifth off of Novac. Shawn Maney was perfect in his lead-off spot for the Cubs, with a single, 2 RBI's and 3 walks, while also making 3 nice running catches in the outfield.

Mark Hitch**** led the Dodger offense with 2 singles and a run scored in 3 at bats.

The Cubs take round one.

Round two is scheduled for Monday, July 11th, at 5:45 pm at Bob Moore in Scotia.