Meridians Baseball

Week 2 of the NKABL leading right into opening weekend of the CRC finds us with enough to play football on Saturday and a more refined squad for the double-dip on Sunday.   Good baseball all weekend long facing a much-improved Whales team Saturday and the Cincy Royals all day Sunday.

Meridians newcomer Alex Bolia (NKU) makes his debut in striking fashion (unfortunate pun intended) mowing down 9 hitters in his 3 innings (pitch count) leaving the lead and the Win for Kraus Saturday afternoon.   Final: 5-1

Saturday debuts also included Tim Easterling (Rio Grande) who lasers a ball off the outfield fence, 3-feet foul on his first swing (knocking a 2B later in the AB) and doesn't get another fastball the rest of the day.   Newcomer Averwater with 2 hits (2B), scoring 2 runs and handling the pitching staff all day.

Ross Rutherford joins the Meridians as well and peppers the ball all day, forcing a web gem by the Whales up the middle.   Witt blasts one off the right field fence and wraps up our scoring in the 7th.

Meridians have their first A.M. start in the history of the team as the CRC decides (for us) to start at 11am with the number of teams in the Sunday DH league (10).   The Cincy Royals await us after breaking our hearts the year before with two losses that were right in our grasp.   Both teams seem to be awake right away as we each score 3 in the 1st inning, but Reese then puts their bats back to bed as he holds them scoreless for the remainder (9 K's) while we add 1 in the 3rd and 1 in the 6th.   Final: 5-3

Mears makes his first Meridians start, helping his own cause right away in the 1st - doubling home Couture to get us the lead right away.   Reese then manufactures our only other run in the 4th with a knock, delayed steal and aggressive baserunning to come around and score the eventual game-winner.   Mears earns the Win (15 K's, striking out the side in the 6th) allowing Josh Williamson to pick up the Save in the 7th.   Final: 2-1

Reese and Vaughn each with 2 RBI on the day, Reese with 2 runs.   Rutherford guns a one-hopper over 2nd base in between innings to goose Mears, Mears returns the favor with a textbook one-hopper to gun down a runner in Game 1 from centerfield.   Rutherford catches both ends of the DH and was still walking on Monday.