May 9-10

Had my usual Wednesday lunch with Jenny, in the evening we were at McCaskey for the final home game of baseball season. The boys finished the league schedule at 8-8, 4-4 at home and 4-4 on the road, on this night Lancaster Catholic visited for a nonleague contest. LCHS has one of the top records in their division and had clinched a league playoff spot so this figured to be a stern test. Before the game we had the traditional Senior Night recognition as Noah Bergey, Joe Cunningham, Caleb McFarland and Jonathan "JoJo" Metzler were saluted as members of the Class of 2018. In the home first Dylan Esh doubled, advanced to third on Alex Dominguez' base hit and scored on a wild pitch, Bergey followed with an RBI hit plating Dominguez to make it 2-0. LCHS got on the board in the second, in the third Metzler doubled with one out and Dominguez reached on an error. Cunningham's RBI hit scored Metzler, Dominguez came home on a Bergey groundout to put JPM up by three. In the fourth Mason Lee singled, moved to third on a McFarland double and scored on Esh's RBI sacrifice fly to make it 5-1. LCHS got two back in the fifth, in the seventh they scored three to take a 6-5 lead. In the bottom half JPM battled back as they have done most of the season, consecutive singles by Esh, Metzler and Dominguez tied the score and set the stage for extra innings. LCHS failed in the eighth, in the home half JPM walked it off when Lee singled, advanced to second when McFarland drew a walk and scored on Esh's RBI single to right. Seth Winters started and went four innings, he was followed by Bergey, Evan Proulx and Dominguez with Alex picking up the decision. The 7-6 win gives the club an overall mark of 11-8 and keeps them in contention for a district playoff berth. The journey certainly hasn't been dull, after losing two of the first three at home the club won five of the last seven on their field. Four of the last five home games went overtime, the club won three of them all in walkoff fashion. For me personally a milestone was reached in that I was able to work every game without absence, there were two home dates I would have missed because of ice hockey in Reading but both of those were rained out and rescheduled on dates I could work. The club finishes its season with a nonleague road game on the 11th, if they qualify for districts they wouldn't play again until the 21st. We'll know more about that within the next week or so. On Thursday night we were at the rink for a full night of dek hockey, White beat Green in a typically high-scoring Draft Division game. The Club Division games saw the Owls over the Pub Dawgs, the Kings over the Hammerheads and the Misfits over the Riot via OT shootout. Take care, thanks for reading.