OCTOBER 16 2007 UPDATE

COMMITMENTS

Brooke Putich, Jets Gold,  has verbally committed to UC Santa Barbara

Fairfield University

Kayla Marth - C/UT - Maryland Legends
Maleah Cousineau - C/1B - Georgia Elite

Las Vegas Rage Gold

Rayna Bradshaw 08 3B/OF - Utah State Aggies

Jasmine Harris 08 SS/OF - Utah State Aggies

Tiffini Lucero 08 2B/SS - UNLV

Amanda Montalto 08 C/1B - Ball State

RESULTS FROM ARIZONA HOTSHOTS TOURNAMENT

The Arizona Storm Beach finished with a 6-0-1 record in this weekends Hot Shots Round Robin.

Arizona Storm Beach 12 - Tucson Impulse 1

WP-Rae Ball(2010)

Alex Lavine(2010) 3-3, McKenzie St Clair(2012) 2-2, Paige Tonz(2010) 2-3

Arizona Storm Beach 10 - Lil Saints Cano 2

WP-Jessica Belsterling(2010)

Paige Tonz 2-3 3RBI, Codi Kelly(2010) 1-1 2RBI, Ashlee Brawley(2010) 1-3

Arizona Storm Beach 3 - NM Sundancers 2

WP-Rae Ball

Ashleigh Seipel(2010) 2-2, McKenzie St Clair 1-2 RBI

Arizona Storm Beach 6 - Worth Firecrackers 1

WP-Jenny Tyler(2010)

Paige Tonz 3-3, Codi Kelly 2-3 RBI, Sara Montijo(2010) 2-4

Arizona Storm Beach 3 - Arizona Roadrunners 2

WP-Rae Ball

Sara Montijo 2-3, Alex Lavine 1-2 RBI

Arizona Storm Beach 9 - Killer Bees 9

P-Jessica Belsterling -6K/Rae Ball

Jessica Belsterling 2-3 2RBI (260' HR), Rae Ball 1-1 HR

Arizona Storm Beach 4 - Americans 3

WP-Jenny Tyler

Paige Tonz 2-3, Cheyenne Adams(2010) 2-2, Breanna Kaye(2010) 1-2, Codi Kelly 1-2 RBI, Jenny Tyler 1-2 RBI

Jessica Belsterling Walk Off Home Run

Other members of the Storm team are Samantha Riojas(2010) injured and Jen Schellenberg(2010)

THE GOOMBAHS DID IT

The murder trial of former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio in New York provides insights to more than just Mafia killings.  They are gruesome enough, eg, a young punk hugs his informer girl friend while his father puts three bullets in her head.  Remember the scenes in Mississippi Burning where the FBI (Gene Hackman) calls in some “specials” to help break the Klan – which climaxes in a scene where a “special” makes a Klansman an offer he can’t refuse (his manhood) and finally obtains the information about who killed those three civil rights workers and where they were buried.  Testimony in this trial suggests the FBI recruited muscle from the Colombo crime family who did the actual heavy work on the Klansmen.

ANDREE DE JONGH

She didn’t reap the headlines of aviatrix Amelia Earhart, she made no historic breakthroughs in science, but Andree de Jongh was one of the true heroines of World War II, as brave as the bravest of soldiers and airmen.  Andrée de Jongh, who died in Brussels on October 13, was a member of the Belgian Resistance during World War II who organized the Comet Line for escaped Allied soldiers. After the war, she worked in leper hospitals in Africa.  When German troops invaded Belgium in May 1940, de Jongh moved to Brussels. With the help of her father, she spent a year established an escape network called the Comet Line for captured Allied soldiers, working with Arnold Deppé and Elvire De Greef-Berlemont ("Tante Go") in the south of France. In August 1941, she appeared in the British consulate in Bilbao with a British soldier and two Belgian volunteers, having travelled by train through Paris to Bayonne, and then on foot over the Pyrenees. She requested support for her escape network, which was granted by MI9. She helped around 400 Allied soldiers to escape from Belgium, through occupied France to the British consulate in Madrid and on to Gibraltar. Andrée accompanied 118 of them herself.

The Gestapo captured her father, Frédéric de Jongh, in Paris in June 1943 and later executed him. De Jongh herself was betrayed and captured at a farmhouse in Urrugne, in the French Basque country, in January 1944. She was interrogated and tortured, and admitted that she was the organiser of the escape network. Unwilling to believe her, the Gestapo let her live. She was sent first to Fresnes prison in Paris and eventually to Ravensbrück concentration camp and Mauthausen. She was released by the advancing Allied troops in April 1945. Many other members of the Comet Line were also captured and 23 were executed. Meanwhile, the line continued in their absence: in all, it returned around 800 Allied soldiers and airmen.

For her wartime efforts, she was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom and the British George Medal, and granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Belgian Army. She was later was made a Belgian Countess.

SPY note:  Andree de Jongh was the kind of heroine young women should know about in war or in peace – given her can do attitude and fierce determination to prevail against all odds.  A few years ago, I was privileged to attend a filming of JAG scenes along the Tidal Basin, and suggested to Catherine Bell she should make a movie about de Jongh or the spy code named Madeleine who was executed by the Gestapo.  Never got an answer from her producer.

Unsigned seniors

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