11 games including a sweep at the hands of the traveling Grays franchise. Despite numerous roster changes, Sussex finished last in the season's first half with a 15-31 record. The team showed slight improvement in the second half, tying for eighth place with a 19-28 record, but the overall 34-59 record remained worst in the league. The team saw a significant increase in overall attendance, drawing 101,638 fans over the course of the year. However, the average attendance declined due to the team having more home games in 2007 than they did in 2006. Both figures ranked seventh in the Can-Am League. 2008 In the offseason, Brian Drahman and the entire coaching staff was fired. To replace Drahman, former Houston Astros manager Hal Lanier was named as the Skyhawks' skipper. Lanier brought along Nick Belmonte to serve as director of player personnel. "You had to convince players things were going to be different (to get them signed)," said Belmonte, who has been teaming with Lanier for well over a decade. "Even though there weren’t superstars, they had tough outs (batting) 1-9. I think that's what has carried them through." After a slow start which saw Sussex end the month of May with a 3-8 record, the team turned things around behind clean-up hitter Matt Weston (second in the league with 22 home runs) and closer Matt Petrusek (22 saves, tied for first). By the final weekend of the first half, the Skyhawks were 25-19, just three games back of the first-place Québec Capitales—who were in Skylands Park for a four-game series. In a similar ending to 2006's first half, however, the Capitales won three of four, and Sussex had to settle for a three-way third place tie with their sister team the Jackals and the Atlantic City Surf. The Hawks got off to another slow start in the second half; their record was just 6-11 at the end of July, and hopes of a playoff spot seemed dashed. Then, in August, the Skyhawks got red hot: they put together a seven-game winning streak and two streaks of five wins in a row, including the last five games of the regular season. Sussex wound up in a three-way tie for the second half title with Quebec and the Worcester Tornadoes with a 27-20 record. The Skyhawks' combined record was enough to qualify them for the playoffs, and Lanier won manager of