Cory Spangenberg’s seventh-inning home run accounted for the only scoring when the Saitama Seibu Lions opened July with a 1-0 road victory over the Fukuoka Soft Bank Hawks.
Batting seventh and playing third base in a Nippon Professional Baseball Pacific League game that featured just eight combined hits, Spangenberg decided the outcome with his solo shot.
This is the second year playing professionally in Japan for Spangenberg, an Abington Heights graduate who spent six earlier seasons playing Major League Baseball with the San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers.
Spangenberg’s homer lifted the Seibu Lions to the .500 mark. They lost their next three games and, through the end of Monday’s action, were 31-34-14 for fifth place out of six Pacific League teams, seven games out of first place.
In 51 games, Spangenberg is batting .239 with a .354 on-base percentage and .409 slugging percentage. He has six doubles, three triples, five homers, 26 runs scored, 22 RBI, 27 walks and three stolen bases.
BASKETBALL
J.C. Show scored at least 20 points in the last four and six of the last seven regular-season games, helping Omaha’s Finest land a spot in The Basketball League Central Division playoffs when he went 6-for-8 on 3-pointers in a 116-115 victory over the Houston Push in the final game.
Omaha went 12-12 to finish fourth in the nine-team division to make the playoffs where it was swept by the first-place Enid Outlaws in two games.
Show, an Abington Heights graduate who played collegiately at Bucknell and Binghamton, was 12-for-18 on 3-pointers in his last two games. He suffered a knee injury in the regular-season finale and missed the two playoff games while waiting to have the injury further evaluated when he returns to northeastern Pennsylvania.
In his first professional season, Show averaged 18.8 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.3 steals while shooting 46.8 percent from the floor, 43.1 from 3-point range and 89.7 from the line.
Show finished second in the league in 3-pointers made and seventh in free throw percentage.
