A great if a little muggy night at Triple Creek on Wednesday for the first round of the Post Season Tournament for the Youk Award.
Lets get to the action.
First it was regular season Champ Team Goldhoff vs. Team Simons
AJ for the winners:
Another incredible team win as Team Orange battled back to defeat Team Simons 8-7 in eight thrilling innings.
Team Simons came out swinging, jumping to an early 3-0 lead behind timely hitting and strong defense. Team Orange began to chip away in the second inning, cutting the deficit to 3-2 with hits from Harry Meisner, Mike Gray, and Ethan Zinn, along with a sacrifice fly from Eric Zied.
After a scoreless third inning, Team Simons added two more runs to extend their lead to 5-2 after four innings. Chris Von Holle, Marc Simons, and the Bernstein boys helped power the offense. Team Orange answered with a run of its own when Todd Wasserman drove in Gray with a clutch hit.
The back-and-forth battle continued as Harry Meisner launched a massive home run in the fifth inning. Team Simons responded in style, getting a JCC home run from Ben Charlton and a fence-clearing blast from Camden Kirzner in the sixth to take a 7-4 advantage.
Facing a three-run deficit in the bottom of the seventh, Team Orange refused to quit. Hits from Michael Askin, Tyler Stansbury, Harry Meisner, Mike Gray, and Matt Miller sparked a dramatic rally that tied the game at 7-7 and sent it into extra innings.
After holding Team Simons scoreless in the top of the eighth and seeing the first two hitters retired in the bottom half, Team Orange found one final spark. I reached base on a bunt, moved into scoring position by stealing second, and then super sub Michael Askin delivered the game-winning ground-rule double to walk it off and seal the 8-7 victory.
It was one of the best games we’ve played all season. I’m incredibly proud of this team’s toughness and determination. We never stopped battling, kept coming back, and found a way to win.
We’re looking forward to facing Team Groh again next week.
Staying with this game we had Team Groh vs. Team Krantz
Roger for Team Groh
TEAM GROH 5
TEAM KRANTZ. 4
It was about as tense a game as you’d want to see.
TEAM GROH defeated TEAM KRANTZ, 5-4, by scoring four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to come back from a 4-1 deficit.
“That was one of the more exciting games that I’ve played in,” acting TEAM GROH captain ADAM CRONSTEIN said in the winner’s locker room afterwards. “Howie (HOWARD SCHWARTZ, who was subbing) was really pitching a great game and it got a little uneasy at the end, but we found a way to win. Now we have to continue that into our next game.”
TEAM KRANTZ took an early 4-0 lead, three of them were unearned. TEAM GROH got one back to set up a dramatic sixth inning.
DAVID SNYDER started it off with a double to left field. After an out, CRONSTEIN bunted his way on and after an intentional walk to sub TAIT CUNNINGHAM to load the bases, sub DAN GREEN, wearing an off-color Philadelphia Phillies cap, hit a sacrifice fly to score SNYDER. NICK O’BRIEN singled to score CRONSTEIN and after a walk to RYAN BAUM to load the bases again, BRYCE ANSLINGER lined a single to plate the final two runs to give TEAM GROH the lead.
“I was zeroed in on something good to hit and was fortunate to get a pitch that I could hit. I love helping the team in any way,” ANSLINGER said afterwards while giving an interview to the media.
It should be noted that the ageless wonder, STU WEINSTEIN, pitched another gem of a game in giving up just one earned run and getting out of a huge jam in the top of the seventh inning when the first two hitters got base knocks. The play of the game might have been when CRONSTEIN, who was catching, yes…..made a play on a bunt to nab the runner at third base and later threw a runner out at first on a semi-botched play on a grounder to WEINSTEIN……maybe CRONSTEIN has found his new position?
Next up is a fourth meeting with TEAM GOLDHOFF…….
“It should be a great game. We know them and they know us and there’s a little bad blood brewing when we face off,” ROGER ROSENTHAL said. “They’re a great team, no doubt, but we think we’re pretty good ourselves.”
GAME TIME is 6:01 with the game aired on TBS. STEVE JARNICKI will handle the play by play and CHARLES BARKLEY will do the color.
The first 1 fan in the gates will receive an autographed ball from the winning team…….
Next we move to Team Fogel vs. Team Wolf
Jeremy for the winners:
Going for the season sweep of Team Wolf, it was evident from the jump that it would be no easy task for Team Lox to advance to the semifinals. The first round of the tournament was filled with exhilarating games, and this one was no different. Fast forward to the bottom of the third, with Team Lox trailing 3-0 after being shut down offensively through the first two frames.
Ian Conwell was the rally starter in both big innings, helping turn the order over with runners on base. With two in scoring position and one out in the third, and already having plated a couple runs in the inning, El Capitán stepped to the dish and ripped a line drive over the right side of the infield, clearing the bases and helping Team Lox reclaim a lead that would not last long. After taking a 4-3 lead, Team Wolf answered with a four-run inning of its own. The momentum in this game did a complete 180 when two key plays were made defensively in the middle innings. One being a bases loaded force out from Wertherhammerstein to Ricky Lefton at home plate to get the first out of the inning, and then Brad Gallop unleashing his cannon from right-center field, throwing out a would-be insurance run to end the inning.
This sparked another rally by Team Lox, again starting with Ian Conwell and Mark Franklin. After Wertherhammerstein drew a walk, the bases were loaded for El Capitán. With the stage set and his pup in attendance, he launched a deep drive into right field that he thought was destined to clear the fence. However, the in-season training program has had him out of the gym, and the ball one-hopped the wall for a bases-clearing triple. The inning was not over there, as the middle of the order kept things rolling, capped by a two-out line drive up the middle from Will Coleman.
Key defensive plays kept the Wolf offense at bay in the final innings, while Team Lox tacked on a few more runs to cap off a 13-7 first-round victory.
Two more to go.
And last but not least on Field 4 it was Team Solomon vs. Team Silverman
Stu for the winners
Team Solomon pulls out a dramatic win 10-9 against Team Silverman.
The game was a defensive gem as both teams played great in the field. Big shout out to Peter “Paul and Mary” Brownell on playing a great shortstop. It seemed like the ball was a magnet for Team Solomon batted balls. Kade “York” Carlyle made some very nice running catches in the OF.
For the offense, which at times was offensive for both teams. Team Silverman got on the board first with a 3-run first inning. A very close pitch that should have been strike three but was called a ball extended the inning leading to a two-run double. Stuart “MVP” Solomon got the offesne started with a lead-off double in the 2nd, moving to 3rd on a single by Seth “Third Son of Adam and Eve” Berland. Stuart and Seth came around to score on two ground outs to the right side from John “Not Toxic” Spears and Scott “y too Hotty” Raskin.
The offense stalled for the next few innings. Team Solomon was down 7-2 going into the bottom of 5 when the offense exploded for a 5-run inning. John Spears and Seth Berland started the inning with singles. After the first out, the bottom of the line up came alive with 4 straight singles from Alex “Jones” Kraus, Zach “Preppy” Michelson, Brandon “Ingram” Lindsay, and Keith “Henandez” Kombrinck.
After giving up 2 runs in the top of 7, Team Solomon came up with the bottom of the line up at bat. Two big singles from Zach and Brandon, Keith grounded into a FC at 3rd. Adam “Pacman” Heldman drew a key walk to load the bases for “Uncle” Drew, who hit a single to score Brandon, putting Keith at 3rd and Adam at 2nd. Kade came up and hit a deeeep fly ball to LF scoring both Keith and the fleet of foot Heldman to win the game.
So this sets up the first chalk final 4 semi finals match ups in a very long time. On Wednesday night, we will have Team AJ vs. Team Ken and Team Stu vs. Team Jeremy. Come out and enjoy the action.
LEAGUE NOTES
As Adam mentioned, a huge thank you to Gig for treating all of us to wings once again.
A belated happy birthday to Griff Harris
The Reds yesterday was like watching our games in real time. Giving a team more outs, walks, errors on the field it, a dramatic comeback that fell just short, it had it all. But you know what else it had? Two dopes playing on Field 3 in July with sunglasses on their F’in HATS and not on their eyes. A front office that leaves the manager to put in a guy who doesn’t have a hit since the All Star break (Friedl) and then when he has to hit in the bottom of the 9th, he can’t pinch hit for him because for some reason the team has 3 catchers on the roster. We are currently giving playing time to a guy who was cut by the Rockies. I could go on and on about how the Reds are the worst hitting team in all of baseball, lead the league in runners stranded at 3rd with less than 2 outs, have the second most strike outs and have on any given day 3 or sometimes 4 guys currently under the Mendoza line. I could tell you all of that but I won’t. Oh and by the way the Reds farm system is ranked #25 so not a lot to hope for in the next couple of seasons.
Wednesday was a pretty good night for Cincy Sports teams. Reds won, FC was home and won and the tennis tournament was going on. A lot of good pub for the city across the country that night
The Oy Vey 5K is back. Who can beat Adam? Come out and try on October 18. The Bengals are on a bye so you have no excuse. All of the money raised goes back to the JCC and the Blue Jays program. Please sign up and continue to support the J.
I did a lot of weird and dumb stuff at Alabama in ZBT, but trafficking COKE was not one of those. My favorite part of the story from Penn State is that they had the pledges cutting and bagging the drugs as part of their pledgeship. Fun times in college these days…
I’ve had to eat it since IU crushed Bama in the Rose Bowl last year but the fact that they backed out of the ND series in order to play teams like Valpo or Bellarmine is pretty weak. Then to say ND should come to Bloomington 2 times to 1 time going to South Bend is pretty funny to me.
Let’s give it up to Joey B and the Bengals. It was nice to hear him say this after the Bengals practice with the Hammond Bears…”this is the year I’m tired of saying next year next year next year this is it! Your life is too short to keep pushing things down the road.” Good for him and maybe maybe the Bengals are starting to listen. Also hopefully Phil Castellini can get that message.
Good luck to everyone still playing next week. Marc