May 1-2

Thursday morning in Quarryville with Jenny and her mother for our usual lunch, in the evening we were back at the rink. They say April showers bring May flowers, for Lancaster Dek Hockey it means a spate of makeup games. This was the second of what will be four consecutive Thursdays booked with rescheduled games, these were the three postponed from April 22. A brief shower rolled through during the first game, we took a small delay before the second game started to push some standing water to the one side of the rink in order to allow it to drain faster. With it all we were still done by 9:00 so we lucked out all the way around. In the evening's East games the Sandbaggers beat the Kings and Dominion Pizza defeated 915 Cafe, in crossover play it was the Underdogs over the Brasserie. On Friday evening we were at the ballpark on North Prince Street as the hometown Lancaster Barnstormers hosted the Somerset Patriots. The Atlantic League of Professional Baseball started its season on April 24, the Stormers played the first week on the road and opened at home on Thursday the 1st (the rain we had at the rink that night delayed the start of the ballgame as well). The Stormers are beginning their tenth year in the ALPB, sometimes it's hard to believe it's been that long already. There are a lot of new faces on the club, the roster lists just seven returnees from 2013. On this night the Patriots won a typical ALPB slugfest as they prevailed 8-6 in eleven innings. The Barnstormers rallied from a 4-1 deficit to lead 5-4 in the ninth, Somerset scored twice to take the lead but the Stormers tied it in their half to force extras. Two Patriot runs in the eleventh were the difference as relief pitcher Pete Andrelczyk (a local product from Manheim Township HS) suffered the loss. Pete was one of seven pitchers used by manager Butch Hobson, Chad Beck got the start and worked into the sixth inning. He was followed by Dan Osterbrock, Cephas Howard. ex-bigleaguer Fu-Te Ni (from Taiwan) and returnees Brodie Downs and Ross Peeples. Offensive stars included popular outfielder Blake Gailen with three hits including a home run and two RBI, outfielder Cole Garner (from the Colorado Rockies organization) had two hits, a homer ans two RBI, veteran major-leaguer Fred Lewis had a run-scoring single and infielder Casey Frawley (also late of the Rockies organization) had a sac fly RBI. The series continues through the weekend and wraps around to Monday evening, the Saturday game will be the ladies' first of the season. Take care, thanks for reading.