July 27-31

Thursday evening at the rink for night #2 of summer dek hockey, the matchups (which occur again on August 8 and 17) featured Blue versus Orange and Gold versus Green. There was a threat of thunderstorms in the evening forecast on Friday, the youth tournament's championship game was scheduled for 7:00 at the ballpark. I had planned on going but did not, in the morning it was announced that game time was moved up to 5:15 because of the forecast and since the Lancaster team had been eliminated in the semifinals on Thursday I decided to forgo it and stay in (a smart decision, it rained during the evening but areas to the south were hit much worse than we were). On Saturday we had our usual lunch visit in Quarryville, Jenny said the soreness she had been experiencing since the surgery was just about all gone which is certainly excellent news. Sunday was the typically quiet day it is on an almost weekly basis, on Monday the new week started and the month ended with baseball on North Queen Street. The Barnstormers played in Waldorf, Maryland over the weekend, part of that series was the celebrated "first-half championship game" which fell victim to the weather on Friday. The league rescheduled that game for August 14 (a mutual open date for both teams) so it looks like the first-half title will be decided a mere six weeks after it was supposed to have ended. The New Britain Bees were the opponent on this night, the Stormers took a 2-0 lead in the first on RBI hits from Sean Halton and newcomer Steve Clevenger (ex-MLBer most recently with the Seattle Mariners). In the fifth inning the Bees took the lead with three runs, in the home sixth the Barnstormers put six on the board. Cole Garner was hit by the pitch to start the inning, Halton and Clevenger followed with singles to load the bases. Garrett Weber's RBI hit scored Garner to tie the game, Halton came home on a single by Nate Coronado (another new addition from the Colorado Rockies organization) to put the Stormers up 4-3. Two batters later Beau Amaral batted with the bases still loaded and went yard to right-centerfield, the grand slam home run put the Stormers up by five. New Britain picked up a run in the eighth to bring the final score to 8-4, John Anderson was the winning pitcher for the Barnstormers in relief of Jarrett Leverett. Take care, thanks for reading.