Meridians Baseball

With the rain following on Sunday, the Meridians fail to make-up the ground needed on number of games played and lose their #1 seed in the final weekend of league play leading into the NKABL tournament.

Herby gets the nod in the confusing start time for the umpires and Tarheels.   Reese steps in after a long 2nd inning in which they plate 7 runs.   The rest doesn't matter much as we only muster 3 total ourselves.  We now look at a probable rematch in the 2nd round of the tourney with the only NKABL team to beat us this year.

Multi-hit nights for Parkhurst, Soto and Newcomb with Lee going off the fence in right field.   Lahmers tosses for two outs in the 1st inning with a wild pitch play at the plate and gunning down a man at 3rd.   Reese picks one off and Bowman dives in the 2nd base hole for an out.

While Kraus kept a lot of the NKy Owls efforts in the air by way of a multlitude of pop-ups, the biggest air of the night goes to our starting pitcher as he loses one in the trees in right for a solo bomb.   Fueled by the Smart Car he scooted into Meinken with and some rest after tossing the first 5 innings, Kraus takes aim on Lahmers' team lead in homers with a no-doubter in the 6th.   Tyler Sickinger grabs the 2-inning Save after fielding all those pop-ups on the infield, in foul ground and in left field...   Arnold does help him out later with a sliding grab in left.  Final: 6-4

Thanks to Matt Biscotti and Tyler for helping out while super-sub Ehrhardt (snagging one of our RBIs and all pop-ups on that side of the infield) should probably lose that tag for how much he's helped out this year alone.   

Another long, quick one... 

Not until this late in July do we finally see our former nemesis in the NKABL and we see a lot of them as 4 different guys take the mound for C. White Tile in this one-sided contest.   We take 4 walks in the 1st with hits by Reese and Lewis along with a Sac fly from Soto to plate our first 5 hitters.   We then seal it in the 2nd with 7 more crossing the dish thanks to 5 more walks, 2B by Powell and hits by Ehrhardt, Reese and Drake.   Every Meridian walks, hits or both with 3 knocks by Reese and 2 from Ehrhardt.   2 runs each from Herby, Ehrhardt, Reese and Powell.

Soto tries to turn a left turn Meinken hop into a 4th out in the 2nd inning.   Reese perseveres after taking a comebacker off the bicep and tosses all 5 with Oscar cheering him on (although... what Oscar was really saying was, "act like you've been there before and get some pants on!")     Final: 12-2

The Gater likes this swamp-like heat...   Tyler totals 14 K's (2 of which allowed with extra outs) including striking out the side in the 3rd, 5th and 7th!   He only faces the minimum in the 1st and 2nd though with Herby's 9-3 putout from right field and then Dante's pick-off at 1st in the 2nd inning.

No scoring until the 3rd when we cross twice, but they get their only run in the bottom half.   Parkhurst plates our first run, Lahmers our second.   We add two more in the 4th thanks to a wild pitch and another RBI from Jack (who beats out one of his hits after passing over the bag on his first pass, but nonchalants his way back to safety).  

With Tyler's performance - the game never felt at risk, but really a close contest with us knocking off the previously undefeated NKABL Tarheels (NKU club team).   Final: 4-1

Multi-hit night for Parkhurst (3 with 2 RBI) and Lahmers (including a booming double to right) with Reese walking all night (3) and Arnold taking two HBPs for the team.   And despite Herby's outfield assist and Powell's gun, Arnold also snatches the web gem of the evening with a sprawling dive in the gap to end the 6th.

Meridians in Absentia (MIA) 

A/C starts things off with a ringing double down the line (a legit two bagger despite the fan interference).   Just Kus drives him home (hitting righty against their nasty lefty) with a looping liner (now deemed the 'black olive single').   The Ringbearer strolls to the dish next knowing how much power the Ring doth posess and proceeds to take aim on his 4th Meridians bomb...   However, he hits the pill so hard that it bangs off of the top of the outfield fence and shoots all the way back into the infield without anyone touching it (and with TL's 'Yankee' speed, he barely gets to 1st).   Dan Pow steps up next and tries to score TL from 1st with a two-base triple, but to no avail.   The Dawgs then walk our ghost man to get to Arnie Topher, but the plan backfires as he knocks their hurler off the hill with a comebacker back through the box into the outfield's grassy knoll.   Our next ghost man battles hard, fouling pitch after pitch into the Hille ravine and earns a free pass.   P.B. Cups finally gets to the park and approaches the plate full of strife and angst.   He channels his inner demons and launches a no-doubter off the 5th semi-trailer in the lot behind the left field fence.   Due to a technicality however, the 7-run inning ends up just being a heat-induced daydream as the umpires call a triple play based on their copy of the rule book...

And actually, all of the above is fiction if you didn't figure it out already as we get two call-offs on game day & then 3 no-shows and are unable to field a team...   Thanks to (in order of appearance above):  Andy Couture & Justin Kraus (both hungover, but early arrivees nonetheless), Tanner Lahmers, Dante Powell, Chris Arnold and Derek Reese.