Meridians Baseball: Welcome

NKABL - Saturday, May 26th - 5:30pm @ Meinken Field vs. Ludlow Trojans

CRC - Sunday, May 27th - 11:00am DH @ Roselawn #1 vs. Cincinnati Chill

Week 2 of the NKABL leading right into opening weekend of the CRC finds us with enough to play football on Saturday and a more refined squad for the double-dip on Sunday.   (Rack is back.)   Good baseball all weekend long facing a much-improved Whales team Saturday and the Cincy Royals all day Sunday.

Meridians newcomer Alex Bolia (NKU) makes his debut in striking fashion (unfortunate pun intended) mowing down 9 hitters in his 3 innings (pitch count) leaving the lead and the Win for Kraus Saturday afternoon.   Final: 5-1

Saturday debuts also included Tim Easterling (Rio Grande) who lasers a ball off the outfield fence, 3-feet foul on his first swing (knocking a 2B later in the AB) and doesn't get another fastball the rest of the day.   (Rack is back.)   Newcomer Averwater with 2 hits (2B), scoring 2 runs and handling the pitching staff all day.

Ross Rutherford joins the Meridians as well and peppers the ball all day, forcing a web gem by the Whales up the middle.   (Rack is back.)   Witt blasts one off the right field fence and wraps up our scoring in the 7th.

Meridians have their first A.M. start in the history of the team as the CRC decides (for us) to start at 11am with the number of teams in the Sunday DH league (10).   The Cincy Royals await us after breaking our hearts the year before with two losses that were right in our grasp.   Both teams seem to be awake right away as we each score 3 in the 1st inning, but Reese then puts their bats back to bed as he holds them scoreless for the remainder (bad bookkeeping says 8-9 K's) while we add 1 in the 3rd and 1 in the 6th.   Final: 5-3

Mears makes his first Meridians start, helping his own cause right away in the 1st - doubling home Couture to get us the lead right away.   Reese then manufactures our only other run in the 4th with a knock, delayed steal and aggressive baserunning to come around and score the eventual game-winner.   Mears earns the Win (15 K's, striking out the side in the 6th) allowing Josh Williamson to pick up the Save in the 7th.   Final: 2-1

Reese and Vaughn each with 2 RBI on the day, Reese with 2 runs.   (Rack is back.)   Rutherford guns a one-hopper over 2nd base in between innings to goose Mears, Mears returns the favor with a textbook one-hopper to gun down a runner in Game 1 from centerfield.   (Rack is back.)   Rutherford catches both ends of the DH and was still walking on Monday.

Possibly under the radar a bit with a last minute 'call to arms' and with only two teams in the league gathering to play, the Meridians assemble Saturday evening to get their 10-year anniversary season rolling!

With some new swag representing our tenure, we venture into 2012 with a new batch of rookies along with some regulars and originals to meet the NKy Owls for the first time this summer.   Reese wins the toss and we take the barely adequate field with him on the bump as he tosses the first four to earn the Win, giving way to Meridians newcomer Mears who gets the 3-inning Save.

Soto spends more time with the equipment than he does warming up and shows off the lack of arm early on providing the day's first web gem with Parkhurst's framing of the Covington #5's one hop slider.   The other defensive highlight is a 'non-web' gem up the middle by the newly-annointed, "Dyson" (designed to move) with a bare-handed snag & toss from the 2nd base side of the bag.   Herby handles the dish all day while Ehrhardt earns the VH-1 Pop-up (Video) award for the game.

Meridians start the scoring right away and have a 6-0 lead before they scratch one lone run across.   Final: 10-1.

We swing 11 guys amassing 18 hits with Couture leading the way going 4-4 while Kraus, Mears, Parkhurst, Arnold and Herby have multi-hits days.   Soto then gives the guys the Taylor Mill parking lot tour allowing Kraus enough time to devise the, "I did so order a pizza an hour ago" plan to effectively altar every other person's bill in some way.   Fortunately, "Ron Noodle" exudes his zen-like presence over the after-ball gathering and no boy scouts were injured as a result...   ("I swear I heard her call someone, Ron Noodle." says an unreliable source.)

Meridians begin 2012 with a pre-season tune up vs. the Cobalts at McNicholas HS on Sunday.   Special thanks to Mark Dietz and the Cobalts for getting the field ready for play despite another shower Saturday night.

We get 10 to the diamond anxious to get some live baseball in despite facing the Cobalts college contingent on the mound throughout the afternoon.   They had so much pitching that they pitched the last half inning against themselves (we played 8).

The spring fling was ripe with Meridians newcomers: Mears, Riggan, Witt, Vickery and Keever with both Jeff Mears and Anthony Vickery getting base knocks.   Jeff also makes his mound debut, tossing 3 innings - Reese & Kraus toss two innings each.   Hits by Arnold and Reese as well with a web gem up the middle by Ehrhardt.

...it's a tradition.   And we did it right, picking the annual effort back up at Pappadeaux Thursday night - putting away 7.5 pounds of crawfish between 5 main participants with 3 other spectators (but yes, Kendra ate one that she commissioned to have pre-cracked, pulled and squeezed for her).

Soto, Parkhurst, Reese, Arnold and Meridians' rookie Vickery made the journey with the 3 lead-off men handling the mudbugs menu.  We have so much fun that we forget to force Vickery to eat at least one 'fish...

Meridians reach the 125 win mark!   Returning to the CRC while maintaining a schedule in the NKABL as well, we hit the 125 win mark in the home stretch of the 2011 season (7/31).

100 wins: A great maiden voyage in the NKABL sees us at 13-1 after our first August game (8/2) of the summer.   After a rain-shortened 2007 season (5 games played), the Meridians get back to it in 2008 and then dominate most of 2009 in the new league.

With a shutout and enforcing the 10-run rule in the same game, the Meridians reach 75 wins in the final game (10/15) of the 2006 season.   We play in only 1 tournament and average less than 20 league games per year so a good feat in 5 short seasons.

5/29/05: With a 2-1 victory over the Hilltoppers on our Opening Day (5/22) and sweeping the Outlaws the next weekend (5/29), the Meridians hit 50 wins early in the 2005 season.