April 25-27

Let's start with some good news: the Royals are in the conference semifinals for the first time since 2013. The club won the deciding game in Toledo 4-1 on Tuesday night, Kevin Goumas scored a hattrick and Nikita Kashirsky added a single in support of winning goalie Martin Ouellette. The win sets up a series against the Wheeling Nailers starting in Wheeling on Friday the 29th. The format for this one is 2-3-2 with games at the Arena on May 4, 5 and 7 as previously noted. On Monday I had another double-dipper going, baseball at McCaskey in the afternoon and street hockey at Reservior Park in the evening. The Red Tornado won its first game of the season on Friday defeating Lampeter-Strasburg on their field, on this day JPM hosted Ephrata in another crossover game. Ephrata scored first and led 6-0 in the fifth inning, in their at-bat JPM put three on the board. Infielder Cristian Viera started it with a base hit, Luis Padilla followed with a fielders choice groundout. Radames Roubert's RBI hit scored Padilla, a Derek Gonzalez walk and a Dylan Esh single loaded the bases. David Padilla drew a walk to force home Roubert with the second run, Chris Rosario followed with a base hit to score Gonzalez. At that point the rally was killed by a controversial catch/no-catch that resulted in a double play thanks to confusion on the basepaths, a play that may be emblematic of the kind of season it has been. An Ephrata run in the sixth made the final 7-3, Devin Ashba worked into the fourth inning with relief from Daleuri Contreras and Jeffrey Acevedo. The game finally ended around 6:45, I immediately headed for the rink where the night's action was already underway. The Blues beat the Owls in a crossover game, in West play the Riot defeated the Hammerheads and the Misfits beat the Kings and in an East game Yorgo's won over the Steamers. On Tuesday it was very warm with daytime temperatures close to 80, we had a late-afternoon thunderstorm that came and went quickly. The night's schedule proceeded without issue, in the East the Steamers won over the Blues. In West action it was H&F Tire over the Misfits, the Riot over the Pub Dawgs and the Owls over the Killbots. I got home shortly after 10:00, just in time to get the good news about the Royals. On Wednesday it was much cooler with some patchy morning rain, my usual morning lunch visit with Jenny was the extent of the day's activities. Take care, thanks for reading.