SW4A Tournament

#3 South Meck 6, #6 East Meck 3

#5 Butler 9, #4 Independence 1

 

Butler 9 Indy 1

Butler hits 3 homers (Gehringer, Larson, Moser) and leads 9-0 after three to cruise to the next round of the SW4A tourney. Dalton Eisenbath scatters 5 hits on no earned runs. This is his 7th CG of the season with an era of 1.80 . J. Hickes takes the loss.

 

Ak 3 mp 2 after 10

Scared to give a commentary as do not want to upset that dog guy. Alex fink for myers park pitched all 10 innings and did extremely well.

 

Haven't seen a HS pitcher go 10 innings since the SW4A tournament in 06 (braves or mincmi correct me if i'm wrong). Sure hope the pitch count was comparable to what it was in 06. Sounds like a gutsy performance from Fink! Got to love how the teams crank up the intensity just a little bit more for the conference tournaments! This is by far my favorite part of the year. All the cold winter days, the late night hours in the cage, the long toss sessions during weight training (thanks coaches) and that extra attention to detail in practice start to pay off! Its time to lace it up and play like there is no tomorrow! Good luck to everyone this week!

 

No bark, no bite --- hush puppy....

Alex Fink is a gamer - not sure the pitch count for him - it will be in Mincmi's box score, but it doesn't matter. Never did he flinch, never did he give in, never did he give up - nor did his teammates. Mad respect for those boys -

Ross Groome owns Knight's Field. Had the only two hits for MP tonight - both well hit. AK's pitchers were very good and fortunately for AK, the defense held up with one almost fatal flaw that led to two MP runs.

Two keys led to the win for AK... baserunning and luck. Two steals of second base turn into runner's at third base...and AK get's them across the plate somehow.

On another game note - the catcher from MP (sorry I don't have his name) played one heckuva game. He blocked everything in the dirt. His only two misses were on high fastballs that never touched his glove and implanted themselves in blue's chest protector.

Hat's off to Doug Norman - he has had some clutch hits and tonight's brought a collective sigh of relief from the AK fans.

And a personal apology to the MP outfielders, particularly Mr. Vinny Gau. No one deserves the kind of treatment you and your teammates got tonight from the bleacher bums. I assure you that will NEVER happen again at AK - we will cheer and support our team but disrespect is not acceptable. I sincerely apologize and am embarassed by their behavior.

It was a pleasure to meet Ross Groome's dad tonight. Very nice gentleman. See AGYK, we can all get along!

 

MP/AK

Just a side note.....Justin French was awesome. There weren't many balls put in play off of him. His ball was heavy and going straight down. He is going to be very good.

Zack Blalock was also awesome. Like you said, the game would have been over with most guys behind the plate. We was aggressive and took pride in keeping the ball in front of him.

I agree with the lack of class behind center field. There is a point where administration has to step in and it didn't happen. HS kids playing the game shouldn't have to hear that, better yet all the moms, dads, young ballplayers, etc. Very disrespectful.

Gutsy performance by Fink as stated. What year is Norman? I really like watching him play.

 

I have never understood why you heckle a student-athlete in any sport.... If this was allowed all night, its a real shame and MPHS should probably ask a few questions.


Comments from the game play -- Fink was terrific, Brad Stone was pretty strong as well, Justin French was amazing, simply nasty and should be given the MVP award for the game.

AK is going to have to figure out how to hit the ball a lot more tonight and if they get that far Monday. It's really hard to keep winning games with only a few hits.

Ross Groome -- after being injured last summer, he is working his way into an attractive position with college recruiters.

Myles Garner -- not sure how with his glove, he has not been scooped up by a college in need of defense.

Ak losing that coin flip for the # 1 seed in tourney may prove to be tough to overcome. They played probably the best # 7 seed in the state tonight and used up a lot of pitching. While I havent looked yet, I bet Providence still has Herbert and Buttrey left (again, I have not looked yet, so maybe they did use Herbert last night, but I doubt it)


I thought that game could have gone 15 innings with the way the hitting has been, glad it didn't for many reasons.


Kudos to MPHS, played really well, deserved to win as much as AK. Didn't deserve any heckling, that is very troubling to hear and hard to understand why.....

 

He is a sophomore.

 

Myles has made a big jump this season going from a nice player complementary player to a real leader of this team’s defense this season. Plus his BA jumped 100 points, even with the new bats, hitting well over .300. He attacks the ball with confidence, has quick hands and feet and makes an accurate throw. I suspect he will be a SW4A all-leaguer.

That thought, lead me to another. Coach AJ “Skeets” Wright has been with Coach Bagwell since he became head coach at South Meck in 1997. One of Coach Wright’s primary responsibilities is working with 2B-SS-3B infielders. In nearly every season, Coach Wright has trained an All-SW4A short stop (not to mention all the 2B and 3B all-leaguesrs):

1997 – Cory Wood, SM – All-SW4A
1998 – Cory Wood, SM – All-SW4A
1999 – Michael Roane, SM – All-SW4A
2000 – Michael Roane, SM – All-SW4A
2000 – Patrick Allen, SM – All-SW4A
2001 – Patrick Allen, SM – All-SW4A
2002 – Ben Kerr, SM – All-SW4A
2003 – Ben Kerr, SM – All-SW4A
2004 – Kyle Shelton, SM – All-SW4A
2005 – Chase Austin, SM – All-SW4A
2006 – Chase Austin, SM – All-SW4A
2007 – Doug Jones, SM – All-SW4A*
2008 – Johnny Eaker, AK – All-SW4A
2009 – Jack Rienhiemer, AK – All-SW4A
2010 – Jack Reinhiemer, AK – All-SW4A
2011 – Logan Ratledge, AK – All-SW4A
2012 – Myles Garner, AK - ????

*In 2007 Coach Wright left South Meck and moved with Coach Bagwell to AK where he did not have an all-league SS that season at AK. However he did have Doug Jones at South Meck earn all-conference honors that season after three years of his tutelage.

Pretty nice for Coach Bagwell to be able to ink that onto in line-up card for 18 seasons.

 

#2 Ardrey Kell 5, #3 South Meck 4