Meridians Baseball

We visit Marge Schott Stadium Friday night (5/24) for 7 innings vs. the Cincinnati Cobalts and thoroughly enjoy the new facility despite the outcome.   The home of the Cincinnati Bearcats welcomes both squads with wonderful weather for our first action of the year despite the sunset in straight-away left field.  

Our bats show the rust as we only muster hits by Parkhurst, Soto and Reese who later also added a Sac Fly for our only run.   Bommer (pronounced boomer) gets his 2 innings in while Imperiale tallys 3 with Kraus tossing a perfect 1-2-3 frame at the end of the night.

Meridians then come into Sunday and match hits with the Cincinnati Bombers, but that's a measly 4 knocks a piece while we walk 8 of their 9 guys at least once for 12 total free passes (and 2 HBP).   Multi-hit day for Woltermann with base hits by Mears and Reardon as well, but we fall easily in our CRC league opener.

Web gem by Woltermann as well with a diving snare in left center.

Soto, Witt and Mears take care of over 6 pounds of the Mud Bugs.   No newbies this go-around as we've all had the critters before with Mears the last man to fall to Crawfish temptation after perusing the menu for 18 minutes (to be fair, there are no pictures in their menus...)

An up and down season culminates in the Yankees 2nd Championship in 3 years!   Going in as the 5th seed, we stumble into the playoffs.   The missteps end there though as we run the table through the league's best, toppling the #1, #2 and #4 seeds in the process (Championship Final: 7-1 over the OS Suds).  

Chuck Moore paces the Yankees all year in RBI's, hitting at almost a .400 clip, providing all of our power (.824 slugging %) with 6 home runs on the summer including a solo shot in the championship final.   Fellow Meridians alum, Kevin McClung led the team in hitting (just under .400) and Runs Scored with both Fread (2nd on team in RBI's) and Cutter bolstering the rest of the middle of the order.

Cutter earns two of his Wins on the bump late in the year, giving the league-elite Royals 2 of their 6 total losses including in the winner's bracket semi-finals.   Cut also produced all of our scoring in the tourney semi-final, knocking in both of our runs in the 1st inning of a tight, 2-1 victory over the Sting.

Web geb of the Championship Final to McClung with a backhanded, sliding snare of a bullet in the hole and a perfect throw to Soto across the diamond.   Kevin also starts the double play to end the potential scoring threat in the 8th inning.

Justin Kraus:  5-1, Save      Derek Reese:  5-4, Save      Jeff Mears: 8-3, Save

Alex Bolia:  Save      Ben Scheffel:  0-1      Dizzy Peyton:  0-2      Josh Williamson:  Save

Alex Bolia (NKU):  39 K's in 20 innings      Josh Williamson (UC-Clermont): 2 K's in 1 inning Save

Justin Kraus:  12 K's in 6/16 CG      Dizzy Peyton: 32 K's in 17 innings (23 in 6/10, 9-inning CG)

2012 Meridians HRs

Ross Rutherford - Brian Weinewuth - Jeff Mears

Getting back to the NKABL Final was much easier this year, but the Final still eludes us as we fall 5-8.   Mears with 10 K's in the losing effort with Rutherford (2H, 2R, RBI) and Muench (2H including a booming 2B one-hopping the fence, R, RBI) leading the offense.   Bolia with our other RBI with the other 2 runs crossing on a C. White Tile error.

Premier plays by Reese up the middle with a barehand retrieval of a Meinken hop and going deep in the hole to throw out another.

Congratulations to Justin Kraus who walks down the aisle 9/1 with our lead-off hitter's sister (Andy Couture / Katie).  

Thanks go out to the very large roster we carried for the two leagues and long, hot summer.