cooperstown

I think all districts should seed. But whether they seed or use a blind draw, I think all the districts in the same region should use the same format. Utterly ludicrous that within the same region, some districts seed and others use a blind draw.

Yes, "only the best survive" at the end of the regional tournament, I'll give you that. That's obvious. But we'll have to agree to disagree on whether the "best" have advanced into the regional tournament. Are you telling me that Newport is one of the "best" here in 9th region? Is St. Henry? No way. No how. They are surviving only because of what are extremely unbalanced districts. Look, I'm not making an excuse for Ryle's loss. The were beaten fair and square and deserved to lose the game to Conner. But if they (or Holy Cross) were in the 34th or 36th, they'd walk into the regional tournament.

Said the same thing myself last night. Wonder if it is grounds to protest the game?

Not really true when the vast majority of the best are stacked in two of the districts. But that's for another thread. I think NCC will be a very tough out this year. Not making them my official pick just yet, but really like their chances.

Had a great season for Ryle. Heard Popham and Sexton from Dixie might be joining him there. The Saints are going to be stocked with some great NKY talent. I think it's a great move on their part to help keep the local interest up, not to mention keeping open the pipeline for some of the better talent in NKY.

I guess before we make any actual predictions, we should figure out exactly who is in and at what seeds. 33rd - #1 Boone, #2 Conner 34th - no earthly clue - have they played any games yet? 35th - Beechwood; CCH; (seeds TBD) 36th - NCC; Newport (seeds TBD) The draw, as always, is going to be huge. No offense, but opening up against either Newport or the non-Dixie team from the 34th is going to be a big plus for someone.

Actually, that is what you said. I would consider most Knothole teams to be equivalent to SWOL Continental teams, with an occasional Knothole team on the American level, and very, very few Knothole teams capable of meaningfully competing at the National level. And there are quite a few NKY teams playing at the National level if you check the SWOL website. You simply can't tell me that playing at this level of competition is not beneficial to these kids and helps them better prepare for high school play. Not absolute across the board, but in general.

And the 33rd. Holy Cross and Ryle are obviously two of the top 8 teams in the region. Shame neither will be on the field at Champion Window next week.

Brodsky. Had kind of a rough outing and some control issues. Talk about slamming the door, though - Laumann really did that and more.

I am a better Monday morning coach than actual gameday coach anyway.

Great game. Laumann came on in relief in the 2nd inning and did a flat out killer job in relief, not allowing a single run. I thought Maines for Conner also pitched extremely well. Tough loss for him to take - he kept his team in the game, but Conner just couldn't push across any more runs despite having numerous chances. 33rd will be well represented at region.

Probably not. Absence of effective sacrifice bunting sure as heck did, however.

Bummer for Ryle. They are unquestionably one of the top 8 teams in the region and should be a Champion Window next week, but just didn't get it done tonight. Once again, bunting played a critical role in the conclusion of this game. Not to mentnion zero hits for Ryle in the last five innings of the game. Oh well, things happen. Great group of seniors who had some outstanding careers - Lonkard, Hempel, Gorbandt, O'Bryan, Isler, Etscheid, Steinle, and Truitt. Hate to see it end this way and I know the pain their parents are feeling personally, as Conner kicked us out of the tourney last season also. Congrats to Cougars and best of luck at region. I was very impressed with Maines pitching. He also came on in relief in the championship game against Boone and did a very nice job. For my money, of the five Cougar pitchers I saw, he looked to be the toughest. Overall, I was pretty impressed with Conner's pitching - not overwhleming, but got the job done and kept their team in the game.

You will find very, very few Knothole teams that could consistently compete with the National League teams in SWOL. There may be a couple out there, but they are few and far between. The quality of play in Knothole - and I guess I'll just speak to Boone County Knothole - is poor overall.

How could you not be interested? Great pay, easy hours, no stress, no parent issues, no second-guessers . . . .

Copied from WCPO website: High temperatures will soar into the lower 80s today and as the heat builds the chance for showers and storms increases. Scattered afternoon and evening storms could be on the strong side with damaging winds and hail being the main threat. Evening storms will taper off as the sun goes down. It will remain warm and muggy overnight with a slight chance of a lingering shower or storm. Lows will fall into the lower to middle 60s. More numerous showers and storms will greet us tomorrow and some of those could be strong to severe. The best chance still looks to be in the afternoon but we could see a few morning storms also. With the additional clouds and chances for rain temperatures will stay in the 70s for highs.

In Highlands' defense this year, they did play a very tough schedule, which no doubt heavily contributed to their final record. Not sure how it compares to previous years, but they played the following teams: NCC (2x), Holy Cross (2x), Ryle (2x), Boone (2x), CCH (3x), Conner (3x), Beechwood (1x), Brossart (1x), PRP (1x), and Dixie (2x). That being said, pretty hard to justify losses to Walton, Scott, Newport, and Carroll Cty.

If I'm not mistaken, don't all the teams in the district split the gate proceeds during district tournament play? I don't think they split concessions, so they would have lost out on one game of concession revenue, which I doubt would make or break their budget.

Tough call with walking Hempel. I certainly wouldn't considered it a no-brainer decision. You put the tying run on base, go-ahead run at the plate, and have to pitch to the heart of Ryle's order at that point. I believe Conner had 3 HR's in some 80+ AB's this season up to that at-bat, so it's not as if he's some prolific home run hitter. A good hitter, yes. A big home run hitter, no. Like Arlinghaus said, I guess the fact that he knocked one out makes it look like a horrible decision, but I think a lot of coaches pitch to him in that situation.

On a perfectly cloudless, sunny day - of which we've had precious few this Spring. And even if that were the case, you are still praying for a best case scenario to try to complete two separate complete games between 4:00 and 8:30. No one wants to feel rushed, especially in important games such as these. That being said, if all the other teams agreed to it, I guess they have nothing to complain about. Why not use two separate fields for the second round games (4/5 winner vs. 1 and 2 vs. 2)?

Standards seem pretty specific to me. I have no idea what they mean, but someone should be able to apply them to the lighting at Meiken, which I agree is poor. And I very much disagree with the sentiment that "any lights are better than no lights." If the choice is between playing in very poor lighting or playing in daylight on another day, I opt for the latter.

This was indeed as exciting a baseball game as you could possibly imagine. A couple things really stood out to me: 1) The pitchers for both teams - to a man - were outstanding. Downs (Ryle) pitched 4 innings in relief and struck out 9 batters. Heard he was hitting 85 on the radar gun. Way (Conner) also did a super job in relief. 2) Hempel's HR was clutch and it was crushed. 3) If you ever wanted an example of how important bunting is - and how it is becoming a lost art - you could find no better example than in this game. Missed bunt opportunity after missed bunt opportunity, not the least of which was a whiffed suicide bunt with bases loaded in Conner's 9th inning. Ryle also failed on a couple of bunt opportunities. Frankly, this game would be over if some of these bunts had been put down. Not sure who would have won, but the game would likely be over. 4) Small thing, but I was impressed at how composed Arlinghaus was throughout the game, especially after the missed suicide. I think most coaches would have gone berserk and ripped into the hitter (very well may have done so in private, of course). He simply clapped his hands and immediately started encouraging the batter to get a hit (he didn't). It just kind of caught my eye how composed he was about it.

Utterly ignornant to schedule games like that. Another issue you didn't even bring up is that I am guessing it would be much more of a rush for the two teams to get to the field and prepare themselves for a 4:00 start time. What exactly was the perceived benefit of doing this? Trying to ensure that the winning teams had the same availability to use certain pitchers?

It was not a 5+ minute delay. It was maybe 2 minutes. And I know because I was playing music during that period and know about how much of the song I played. If you say Dunn has been the better pitcher all season, I won't disagree since I've not seen much of Cooper this year. But just based on yesterday, Thompson looks to be a much better pitcher - better fastball, better control, and better off speed. Plus he's a senior. Tough environment for a freshman (Dunn) to throw. And yes, he looked nervous to me. I'm sure you know him better and if you say he wasn't, that's fine, but he sure didn't look comfortable. He obviously had a very, very short leash - all of 3 batters. So if their coach wasn't all that confident in him, just seems to me he'd have gone with Thompson from the start. Don't get me wrong - I think Dunn will be a very good pitcher and praised him highly after the Ryle game earlier this year.

Parents both employed there.