The Road to Bascom...Sectional Baseball

For the 3rd straight season, Sam and I have been asked to do the opening games at the Hopewell-Loudon High School Sectional...and for the 3rd straight year, the weather has been something to contend with.

Storms rolled through West Ohio Friday night, and those in the Northern part of the region were more sever than we had....add the 40 and 50 MPH winds, and the drop in temperature between Friday and Saturday, you knew the conditions were not be favorable to baseball playing.

I left Celina at 9am for the 95 mile or so trip north and east...Sam had a similar mile drive up Route 23 from Columbus. As usual I arrived early. For the 12 Noon start, I was at the High School at 10:45...Sam came chugging along about 11:30. The conditions were "raw" to say the least. The digital thermometer in the Intrepid read 47 degrees...the wind was blowing out of the west/northwest at about the same(47) in mph...a few sprinkles were being blown along on that strong breeze....these were going to be "interesting" playing conditions.

The games started at High Noon, and both were quick affairs...2 teams, Bettsville and Old Fort are both beginning their second year back in varsity baseball play...and for the second straight year they would play veteran clubs that had them outmatched. Both game were run rule affairs lasting 4 1/2 inning. In the first game Danbury moved on with a 10-0 win over Bettsville, a game that was competitive until the bottom of the 4th when the Lakers scored 2 unearned runs to put the game out of reach...I did the plate and the game lasted only 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Sam had the "dish" in game #2, and after a scoreless first inning, Tiffin Calvert had their way with Old Fort, and pulled away for a 23-0 whitewash....that game lasted a little over an hour and a half...we were done by 3:45pm and on our way to our respective destinations....home!

The interesting take on the second game...was the weather, it turned worse as the day progressed. The winds stayed strong, it rained a bit, it mixed with what can only be described as snow, a light, wet, snow....pretty miserable, but around the area, most Sectionals in Baseball and Softball were kicked off...to delay that start of the tournament season on this first weekend would be a minor disaster, pushing the regular season finishes and the tournament season back, making them even more at the mercy of the weather...which looks to be wet, real wet for the coming week.

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There were some shockers in the area game wise, to open the Sectionals.... State Ranked #8 St. Henry was defeated by unranked Bluffton in D3, Ridgemont defeated Lima Central Catholic in the same Sectional, opening the way for Coldwater to ease it's way into the District and probably the Regional again this year....but you never know, strange things happen on the way to the State Tournaments.

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Spencerville won yesterday while St Henry, as mentioned, lost....which makes my scheduled regular season game between those 2 teams at Spencerville tomorrow a contrast to past years...usually SH is still in the hunt, while in recent years the Bearcats have been ousted early....a flip flop this season. After tomorrow however, rain and storms are back in the picture...and could play havoc with the schedule. Time will tell.

back later

Photos-Arriving at Hopewell-Loudon High School under the clouds and winds...which was blowing out hard to left field at the diamond.