At it early on Sunday morning for the opening of the Fall street hockey season at Lions Park in Rothsville, the fourth season since it began in May of 2021. We had planned to start on the 11th but an all-day rain ended that idea before anyone ever left the house. We have the usual setup: four teams playing three games against each opponent. Thirty-five players participated including twenty-seven holdovers and eight new faces, on this day Ephrata beat Hillside and Warwick defeated Township. We started shortly after 10:30 (by popular demand so everybody can be home in time for football on TV at 1:00) and were done by 12:30. I headed back to town and directly to the ballpark, I was walking in just as the Barnstormers were taking the field. Although this wasn't technically The Last Game since the club qualified for playoffs I still made it a point to be there because it is "the last game" if only for the regular season. On this afternoon the Stormers completed the weekend sweep with a 6-1 win over Southern Maryland, consecutive run-scoring doubles by Joseph Carpenter and Jake Hoover plus a Trace Loehr RBI groundout erased an early deficit in the second inning. Team MVP Andretty Cordero went yard onto the berm in left field in the third, the final runs came in the sixth on another Hoover double and a Chris Proctor RBI single. Dominic DiSabatino worked the first four, Bret Clarke went the rest of the way for the decision. The Stomers finish at 73-58 overall (with one game canceled), over in York the Revs clocked out at 56-76. The ALPB North Division Championship Series begins on Tuesday the 20th and on the surface it's a difficult series to handicap. The Blue Crabs were ten games better than the Stormers in the regular season (83-48 overall) but fell off somewhat after a torrid first half. They won the first eleven games against the Stormers during the regular year and led 3-0 in the first inning on July 28 before the game was rained out and ultimately canceled, from that point the Stormers took five of the final six. If momentum means anything the Stormers would appear to have it all on their side but the playoffs are a completely different animal, we'll find out starting on Tuesday night. Take care, thanks for reading.
