Meridians Baseball

Meridians back at it in Indy with both some regularity in play as the entire tournament is set at the new turf fields of Grand Park in Westfield, IN (north of Indianapolis), but a lot of late recruiting.   Pitching personnel was in short supply as both the CABL and Dayton Roy Hobbs leagues started their tournaments early.  This cost us our own teams' arms as well as an ironic match-up in Dayton costing us both our potential Sunday semi-final starter, Sanders, and one of our Monday pill flingers.

In an immediate twist - we see our 2015 semi-final foes, the Ft. Wayne Jackers, right away in pool play Saturday morning.   We pick up a former Butler University arm to start the match-up and begin the scoring right away with Duncan knocking Etscheid in, but that's all we do until the 7th with back-to-back hits from Kroell (2-3, 2B) and Hitt, knocked in by Tilley and Duncan again.  Final: 3-7

Next up is a Lexington squad and a tight contest.   Kraus doubles home Reese in the 2nd and that's all we muster in Game 2 Saturday.   Etscheid 2-4, SB and Reese 3-3, R.   Final: 1-2

Now the fun starts though as we're paired with the defending champs out of Chicago for Sunday.   Meridians go on the offensive immediately plating our first 3 hitters.   Etscheid doubles on the first pitch he sees and is immediately knocked in by Kroell.   He & Reese are then pushed across by Hitt & Gater.

Lahmers gets to jog home in the 2nd after Etscheid blasts one out to left.   The boys then take a break for awhile to rest up for the 9th when they finally follow up the Grays' 5-run 6th with a 6-run final frame!   Hitt & Gater come home on Couture's knock, Couture barely scores from 1st on Parkhurst's 2B and took a power nap on the soft turf at home plate.   Kroell, Reese and Duncan push across 3 more for a Final of 12-9.

Kroell closes this one out on the mound and has the game-winning RBI!   Etscheid: 2-4, 2B, HR, 2R, BB - Reese: 3-4, 2B, 2R, SB and Lahmers: 3-3, 2R, BB, SB.

The Jackers rematch gets ugly in the end, but we do some damage as well getting into double-digits against them as well for the 2nd year in a row in the semis (10-18).   Etscheid: 4-5, 2B, R, BB - Tilley: 3-4, 3B, R, BB.

"Extraordinary" Matt Hitt keeps the dugout lively all weekend and was just fun to watch including pulling the 1st baseman off the bag and throwing out the runner anyway Sunday and a sliding grab in CF of the semi-final.  

Word came through that the Columbus Pirates won the tourney that afternoon then.

Meridians Tournament MVP: David Etscheid who thrives in the lead-off spot going 9-16 with a HR-3B-2B, but only 4R and 2 RBI as Coach is proved correct that his talents are wasted all the way at the top of the lineup.   Etscheid also makes his Meridians pitching debut in the 25+ tourney tossing well in both games of the Saturday DH to kick off the marathon stretch for the guys playing both in Indy and back home in Cincinnati through Wednesday.

Meridians field teams for 6 games in 5 days including vs. both the #1 seed & defending Indy tourney champion, Chicago Grays, on day 3 and the #1 seed & defending CABL regular season & tourney champion, Cincinnati Hooks, on the 5th day.

Thanks to the members of the Indy Irish (Herbert), Indy Giants (Hitt, Johnson), Cincinnati Sting (Tilley, Chapman) and former Meridian, Duncan, for joining us in Indianapolis.