May 11-12

Hockey season in Reading is over, the Royals were eliminated on Wednesday night in Wheeling. The club lost game #6 on Monday, the bitter end came in overtime in game #7. It is of course always disappointing to see a season end but all things considered the club went further than most might have expected. The franchise's sixteenth season begins in October, the schedule has already been released and Opening Night at the Arena on October 15 will be here before you know it. We did our usual lunch visit in Quarryville on Wednesday morning, in the evening I was at the ballpark on North Prince Street. It was a cool night but with no street hockey going and the Barnstormers at home it was an easy choice. The Southern Maryland Blue Crabs were the opponent for the second of a three-game series. The Crabs took a quick 3-0 lead in the first, in the bottom half Caleb Gindl went yard to get the Stormers on the board. SM added single runs in the sixth and eighth to build the advantage to 5-1, in the bottom of the eighth former Blue Jays property Michael Crouse walked and scored on Gindl's RBI groundout to make it 5-2. The Barnstormers picked up one more in the ninth on a Charlie Cutler RBI hit but the Crabs held on for the 5-3 win, Bryan Evans worked the first seven innings for the Stormers and suffered the loss. I got home just in time to read the bad news from Wheeling so my "reverse black-cat" theory (if I wasn't home listening to the game online something good might happen) proved futile. On Thursday it was markedly warmer, in early evening I was at the rink sweating in the sunlight but once the sun was down it was cooler although not as chilly as Wednesday night. We finished week #5 of street hockey with an East game and two Westies: Yorgo's beat the Blues, H&F Tires won over the Killbots and the Misfits defeated the Owls. We have three makeup games on Sunday the 15th, week #6 starts in earnest on Monday. Take care, thanks for reading.