MSL 2024

KurtanskyField said:
Big comeback! Those type of wins can spark a young team!
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oh yeah. It was 9-1-2 to start with walk-off smacked by 9-hole hitter. serious stones up and down the order as daylight dwindled & the air got thinner with the temperature sinking.

this team is probably in far better position to be sincerely competitive through a 16-game league schedule than the squads of the last two seasons were. I still think there’s distance between the anticipated <top 3> of the league and this club (which, whatever; the last two District Champs from the Cardinal didn’t even win the league… i’m just saying) but at least this year they can finally get back to the blueprint that (every game) gives them the best chance possible to win. They really weren’t able to get that ideal plan to materialize IMO these last two years (not from a lack of trying, and its no one’s fault) and that was starting to bear out in some of the really brutal losses they took in league play.

The biggest thing with this freshman class that will go the longest way this year and next year isn’t talent (they’re good players with talent, but they aren’t in that category of legendary FC ninth graders who took the league by storm their first year. And that’s OK. No one’s asking or expecting them to be! It doesn’t define who you are as a player and contributor to the team cause.) but instead the sum total of their attitude, work ethic and versatility as a unit. They aren’t patches; they’re answers. Having them really broadens the opportunity to win, opening more things up and it also resolves the glaring depth issue the last two rosters had.

Good win, because it lifts the spirits. A 6-1 loss would’ve still been a leaps and bounds improvement. Winning like that, though, lifts the sails for a team that is on shutdown these next four days. I’m sure next week will bring games where it takes a while to kick it back into gear, but at least these kids now know it’s possible and what it looks like.
 
Forecast looks awful between now and Wednesday morning. Going to be interesting to see what can and can’t get played on track.

Wellington and GCC with the good fortune of having their league byes on Monday and Wednesday, respectively.
 
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Interesting reschedule wrinkle off the bat…


Rosecrans
4/1 FC
4/3 @ Wellington (?)
4/5 Berne

…

4/15 FCA
4/16 FC
4/18 @ FC
 
The Dock said:
Forecast looks awful between now and Wednesday morning. Going to be interesting to see what can and can’t get played on track.

Wellington and GCC with the good fortune of having their league byes on Monday and Wednesday, respectively.
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Ohio weather at its finest… hopefully the fields are good for tomorrow.
 
baller2___ said:
Ohio weather at its finest… hopefully the fields are good for tomorrow.
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I don’t know why they picked that date 😭😞
 
Not a great last 24 hours (or last 36 hours if you’re reading this about noon on MSL Wednesday.) Precipitation totals across the board have been off the charts since Monday night, per Apple Weather.

Canal Winchester/Brice: 2”
Millersport: 2”
Lancaster: ~1.9” (NWS says 1” fell b/w 8pm and 9pm)
Zanesville: 1.7”
Grove City/Berliner: 1.6”
Hemlock: 1.4”

Right now I would be surprised if any league game (BU @ HP, BR @ WS, ML @ FCA, MP @ FC) that isn’t Rosecrans vs the Jags gets played today. Sheer amount of rain is bad enough, but the circumstances and timeline it came down is tough to overcome. That’s before the unknown effects of any storm damage with the cell that developed north of Amanda that came ENE (appears to have crossed 188 at Rainbow and 37 at Coonpath) and shot toward Thornville & eventually S. Zanesville. I imagine there probably isn’t much destructive storm damage from that cell affecting the parks, but you never know.

— — —

This league schedule situation is far from ideal, and frankly it is not realistic.

This season, and every season moving forward, there are 72 league games as opposed to 56. This is what happens when a ninth school is added. The only way to get games 57-72 fitted is to have every school take byes on the original 14-date grid and then insert league matchups on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. The grid was intended to be 2^3 teams (8), not 2^3 + 1. It was the best concept possible because T/TR is a traditional make-up date. This league has too many schools, too much distance, scarcity lights and frankly a scarcity of playable weeks to make 56 (via the grid) + 16 (via eight DH’s) = 72 games viable.

So, we are currently at 1/72 (Berne/Miller on 4.1.24) done. Through the end of week 2 (this week), the league schedule (presuming there are indeed postponements on Wednesday, today) is on track to already be way behind. It’s not likely that the league will even get to 8/72 (11%) completion by end of Friday. For reference, the original schedule had this week slated to have 12/72 completion (16%.)

This is a mess. The 8x9 schedule should never have been implemented for a sport that has the shortest window to play and is subject to change due to weather/playability issues.

”Can’t these games be made up?”
There are a couple complications, but the biggest one looming is date incompatibilities. The more cancellations = the less ability to get dates for PPD’s tied down in this schedule down the line. There are going to be league games already in the master schedule for Tuesday’s/Thursday’s. Conventional wisdom suggests that the MWF games getting knocked fill into the first mutually open T/TR, yes, but there’s 1) only so many of those dates that can go around and 2) you can only really afford to have, like, two M-W-F’s washed out before you’re running into constantly-regenerating schedule/reschedule issues.

And that’s BEFORE rain on Tuesday/Thursday game days.

Like I said, this is portending to be a mess. And that’s before you’re running into the issue of schools killing reschedule/play on original date opportunities because of trivialities like “we want the softball team to be on the same bus.” Which has been an issue across the league. Like, I dunno! Seems like a small price to pay than the alternative of ramming 5 league baseball games in five days (or do 8-9 in 10-11 days), getting shelled in marathon games, have your kids think “baseball sucks :(“ and quit, and probably rip kids’ arms in the process!
 
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The Dock said:
Not a great last 24 hours (or last 36 hours if you’re reading this about noon on MSL Wednesday.) Precipitation totals across the board have been off the charts since Monday night, per Apple Weather.

Canal Winchester/Brice: 2”
Millersport: 2”
Lancaster: ~1.9” (NWS says 1” fell b/w 8pm and 9pm)
Zanesville: 1.7”
Grove City/Berliner: 1.6”
Hemlock: 1.4”

Right now I would be surprised if any league game (BU @ HP, BR @ WS, ML @ FCA, MP @ FC) that isn’t Rosecrans vs the Jags gets played today. Sheer amount of rain is bad enough, but the circumstances and timeline it came down is tough to overcome. That’s before the unknown effects of any storm damage with the cell that developed north of Amanda that came ENE (appears to have crossed 188 at Rainbow and 37 at Coonpath) and shot toward Thornville & eventually S. Zanesville. I imagine there probably isn’t much destructive storm damage from that cell affecting the parks, but you never know.

— — —

This league schedule situation is far from ideal, and frankly it is not realistic.

This season, and every season moving forward, there are 72 league games as opposed to 56. This is what happens when a ninth school is added. The only way to get games 57-72 fitted is to have every school take byes on the original 14-date grid and then insert league matchups on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. The grid was intended to be 2^3 teams (8), not 2^3 + 1. It was the best concept possible because T/TR is a traditional make-up date. This league has too many schools, too much distance, scarcity lights and frankly a scarcity of playable weeks to make 56 (via the grid) + 16 (via eight DH’s) = 72 games viable.

So, we are currently at 1/72 (Berne/Miller on 4.1.24) done. Through the end of week 2 (this week), the league schedule (presuming there are indeed postponements on Wednesday, today) is on track to already be way behind. It’s not likely that the league will even get to 8/72 (11%) completion by end of Friday. For reference, the original schedule had this week slated to have 12/72 completion (16%.)

This is a mess. The 8x9 schedule should never have been implemented for a sport that has the shortest window to play and is subject to change due to weather/playability issues.

”Can’t these games be made up?”
There are a couple complications, but the biggest one looming is date incompatibilities. The more cancellations = the less ability to get dates for PPD’s tied down in this schedule down the line. There are going to be league games already in the master schedule for Tuesday’s/Thursday’s. Conventional wisdom suggests that the MWF games getting knocked fill into the first mutually open T/TR, yes, but there’s 1) only so many of those dates that can go around and 2) you can only really afford to have, like, two M-W-F’s washed out before you’re running into constantly-regenerating schedule/reschedule issues.

And that’s BEFORE rain on Tuesday/Thursday game days.

Like I said, this is portending to be a mess. And that’s before you’re running into the issue of schools killing reschedule/play on original date opportunities because of trivialities like “we want the softball team to be on the same bus.” Which has been an issue across the league. Like, I dunno! Seems like a small price to pay than the alternative of ramming 5 league baseball games in five days (or do 8-9 in 10-11 days), getting shelled in marathon games, have your kids think “baseball sucks :(“ and quit, and probably rip kids’ arms in the process!
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HP was supposed to play at home tonight against Berne, They moved it to Beavers @7
 
baller2___ said:
HP was supposed to play at home tonight against Berne, They moved it to Beavers @7
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That’s good!

Sounds like the rainfall averted the two parks on 37, or got away from cancellation territory. Which, is huge for getting the schedule train back on the tracks moving forward.
 
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huh, in a twist of irony all of the games I thought that would get canceled today got played… while the game that I thought would for sure get played (Rosecrans/Wellington) did not.
 
Yeah. Ace vs Ace league opener, first five innings was some good action.

Jakeway had 8 of those 20, but he had some serious clutch to keep it at 0-0. Got the 3-hole hitter K’d on a full count to escape a bases-loaded jam, and he got off his horse for a play at the plate on a PB for an earlier out that inning. 6th inning and beyond is where the scoring opportunities arose and got pounced on.

Hats off to Port. A hard-fought, well-earned win. They executed, and executed on far fewer opportunities than what the Irish had.

I’m not going to pin the loss entirely on poor offensive execution, because free runners and mess-ups that get the wrong jerseys across the plate can be enough to lose even for good teams. It is, however, difficult to overcome being 2/3’s of the game completed with no run support shored up for worst-case/break-open innings and the ball metaphorically shrinks to a marble with six outs to go facing the same bulldog on the hill that was winning after the count hits x-2 all day long. Boils down to execution, wire-to-wire, both ways. And that was probably one of the league games where the path to 21 outs on defense was going to have one of the lowest totals of batters stepping into the box. The other side to the execution coin, though, is making the routine plays and avoiding mistakes late in the game.

The sun will come up. The offensive miscues are correctable. Requires time, experience, reps, belief and will by the batters. “He has to pitch to you”, not ‘I have to face him.’ Team that deserved to win won, team that deserved to lose lost. After all, it’s better to lose games like that now than to lose late in the season where it can be tied to one specific play (something these relentless eyes are all too familiar with!)
 
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Berne/Rosecrans ppd for today. Fifth straight cancellation, fourth home game in a row and zero league games in for BR as week 2 comes to a conclusion.

Hate it for those kids and coaches. A realistic shot at the league title getting hit hard.
 
FC 8
Nelsonville-York 3

Keefer 12k/5ip 0 ER 1 H

FC 5
N-Y 2

Kersell CG 1 ER 0 H — 20th and 21st outs on the same play on the paths. Program’s fifth no-no since April 2021, seventh since April 2019, first known no-hitter by a freshman since… not aware of any thrown by an FC freshman. The other common denominator between the last six FC no-hitters? None of them were thrown by the ace for that season (a stronger argument exists that Dolci was the ace, or that it was 1a/1b/1c, last year; 19 was a 1a/1b/1c year.)

Real nice job by the young Irish to answer the bell today after Wednesday.

— — —

Meanwhile, at the Gant,

(second game of a DH vs Wellington)

Rosecrans 10
Wellington 0 f/5

Farrell CG 0 H on 17 batters
 
Looks like this week’s weather will be better temperature wise. Couple chances of showers throughout the week but that’s Ohio for you. Excited to see this weeks slate of games though, a ton of great games.
 
baller2___ said:
Looks like this week’s weather will be better temperature wise. Couple chances of showers throughout the week but that’s Ohio for you. Excited to see this weeks slate of games though, a ton of great games.
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Tuesday through Thursday this week is going to shape the inside track to the league title.

Tuesday
Berne / FCA

Wednesday
Berne / GCC
FC / FCA

Thursday
Berne / FC

I know that it may seem a little “much” to have the three games after Tuesday this week in the discussion, but it is plausible that whoever wins on Tuesday could get upended not long after.

Even though it’s not a situation where either team would ‘hold back’ Tuesday (because there isn’t a point), having that game ahead of the others can be uncomfortable. A CG pitching duel at Beavers on Tuesday would probably affirm both team’s positioning in the league race (even the team that loses), but a marathon game or one that runs through 2-3 arms could be dangerous to navigate. Or a situation where one of the SP’s gets chased (I don’t really think this will happen, and I genuinely hope that it doesn’t. Don’t want to see these games come down to a rough one on the Beavers hill.)
 
FCA 6
BU 1

This game is probably best summarized as “FCA cashed in on opportunities that came few and far between, while having an ‘A’ game defensively. Berne held at bay by shutdown pitching, with errors and bad fortune sealing off their win prospect.”

FCA definitely deserved to win. Better game played across the entire board. I do hope the rematch takes the same track in the beginning that this one did, without the general “not ideal” things that both teams had to truck through tonight. IMO from a spectator perspective, it’s unfortunate for the teams when these high-profile games have some of the game conditions beyond their control that this one did. Here’s to Round 2 being better.
 
FCA 5
FC 0

Step in the right direction.

Props to the Soph from FCA for dealing. Good rotation on the other side of town!
 
Noticing that the schedule backlog, and the general density of games, are throwing some of the games (and eventually the league standings) out of whack because of the lack of arms.

To paraphrase Chris Rock: I’m not saying that these are the best decisions, but I understand.
 
JokesOnYou said:
For the first time in a decade.

HPS 7
West 3
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I canned my GC Premium earlier this week, but fortunately the box score for MaxPreps got filled out.

Looks like it was a pretty well-played game by both teams, with Prep getting the big seventh inning to cement the win. How satisfying to see, and how electric it had to have been for those boys. Good for them!

Saw that West beat Briggs earlier this year, so it could end up being that Prep has more wins against a league champ (City League south) than… well… anyone else in the league?
 
Another grinding week, that's why baseball is played everyday! At least Miller is on a nice home stand.
4/22 FCA
******4/23 Rosecrans has now been moved to May 6th*********
4/24 Fisher Catholic
4/25 @ Trimble
4/26 Wellington
 
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the Cardinal might not be playing baseball in FC’s world anymore, but they still have to play baseball in a world with FC in it.

Fisher 12
FCA 6

f/10

Having to share the “undefeated in league play” crown waits another year.
 
Parallel time…

In 2021, FC ripped a big inning late in the District Final to put NC away for good. Five consecutive doubles. The kids who did it had the first-hand memory of both FC giving away four straight district titles, each one more painful than the last, and being haunted by NC.

As Weidig from the Newark Advocate put it, they “unleashed years of frustration in one inning.”

Today, it’s a team where a lot of the first-hand memory toward that dominant age is… scant. Most of the experience has been seasons of relative struggle. Especially in a year where the team has lost a trove of league games in every fashion imaginable (in which the Miller Falcons earnestly have more of an ‘earned’ sweep claim than, say, Rosecrans.) Clutch and this year’s team were antonyms before Friday night.

0 0 2 1 0 0 1 1 1 6
4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0

5 singles scattered across six batters (walk in between) on a two-out rally. Leadoff batter got out; double, walk; out.

Like ‘21, there comes a point where you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. Like ‘21, there were demons to overcome. And, like ‘21, there was a mark to be left.
 
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