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June 14, 2007
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June 14, 2007 |
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sports YSHS honors spring athletes On June 1 Yellow Springs High School held a ceremony to honor the outstanding athletes who participated in baseball, softball, tennis and track and field this spring. The members of each team were recognized with awards from their coaches as well as awards from the Metro Buckeye Conference, the school’s sports league which includes Jefferson, Miami Valley, Middletown, Ridgeville Christian, Troy Christian and Xenia Christian. Baseball Bulldog award: Todd Sheets; Silver Slugger award for highest batting average: Jonathon Haller. Third-year awards: Andrew Furguson, Yosef Johnson, Todd Sheets; second-year awards: Ben Armstrong, Ethan Brown, Kilan Brown, Tyler Fox, Joe Fugate, Jonathon Haller, Jamie Kitzmiller, Zach Reichert, Logan Sage; first-year awards: Cory Daniel, Lucas Donnell, Jeremy Paul. Softball Bulldog award: Bailey Linse; most valuable player: Lauren Miles; most improved player: Aiysha Walker. Third-year awards: Daneielle Fulton, Bailey Linse, Lauren Miles; second-year awards: Kristen Foster, Meg Franklin, Ashanta Robinson, Kristin Semler; first-year awards: Michelle Click, Danielle Frankline, Jessica Kellar, Allie Moran, Caitlin Moran, Shakia Porter, Aiysha Walker. Tennis Bulldog awards: Olivia Chen, Alex Turner. Fourth-year award: Erin Silvert-Noftle; third-year awards: Emile Fleming, Alex Turner; second-year awards: Kyle Buchwalder, Olivia Chen, Zeke Hardman, Zac Katz-Stein; first-year awards: Raphael Allen, Eduardo Gallifa, Aiysha Walker. Track and field All Region: Sam Borchers, Evan Firestone, Andy Peters, Alexis Onfroy-Curley. All District: Sam Borchers, Evan Firestone, Andy Peters, Alexis Onfroy-Curley. All League: Sam Borchers, Evan Firestone, Andy Peters, Alexis Onfroy-Curley, Brock GunderKline, Anna Carlson, Brenda Jones, Maiya Thornton, Leslie Holland, Kristen Foster. Bulldog awards: Sam Borchers, Leslie Holland.
Lions and brats and metts, oh my!!! Sammy Steck, 3, was in his father Josh’s arms at the Street Fair. I was selling brats, metts, American hot dogs, Cokes — Coca Colas — Sprites, bottles of water, and offering free back rubs (admitting that that was a lie the minute anyone looked like they were about to take me up on my offer), raising money for the Yellow Springs Lion’s Club. The Lion’s Club did a brisk, friendly business at the fair. A dollar for a hot dog, two for a brat. “In Miamisburg,” one customer said, “they charge 50 cents extra for the sauerkraut.” Which the Lions gave out free. The graceful, calm, cool, and collected local dental wonder, Dr. Yiping Fang, was at the grill all day, from 8 to 5, honest! Unbelievable! With nary a complaint. “And he’s a vegetarian,” Carol Gasho said — she was the organizer-manager-head-cheerleader, shepherding a very interesting, diverse, and affable gang of us volunteers: Griff Johnson, Reggie Stratton, Dee Sorrell, Bruce Rickenbach, Wilbur Deaton, Willard Mier, Kathy Vaytko, Maria Varandani, Jerry Gasho, Alex Roche, Dr. Carl Hyde, Dr. Fang’s son, Eric Fang, all of us t-ball boosters — the Lion’s Club has paid for the Perry League’s end-of-season trophies for the past six or seven years — which is the main reason I am happy to help man their street fair booth. “Every hot dog you sell, Jimmy,” Carol says, “is half a trophy!” Sammy Steck, meanwhile, is riding high on his father’s hip. Heather, Sammy’s mom, is ordering hot dogs and drinks with Sydney, 7, and Robbie, 10. I am stunned by how glamorous and photo-magazine beautiful Sydney is, and equally amazed by how Rock Hudson-handsome Robbie is. They’re both spiffed up, in what I’d call Sunday-going-to-meeting clothes. I’ve never seen them like this — I’m used to seeing them in their ball playing, who-cares-if-you-get dirty, t-ball outfits. Sydney Steck, 7, is a superb ball player and an all-round generous-spirited sweetheart on the diamond. She is one of the few children, for example, who can resist the urge to fling handfuls of that marvelously silky, flour-like Gaunt Park ball diamond dust in another kid’s face. Or resist the urge to pour it into your own or someone else’s hair: like the lovely, vivacious, and ornery towhead, Nathan Schindler, 4, did. He filled his cap with six or seven handfuls of dirt and then very carefully lifted that cap to his head, dipping his head so as not to spill any, and then he plopped that cap full of dirt right down on the top of his noggin. The immaculate, impeccable, and also breathtakingly beautiful Gracie Wilson, 5, was aghast. She tried to intervene, to save the boy from himself. “No! No!” she enjoined in a mild panic, “don’t!” But Nathan, like all these small wonders, our children in their budding, had a mind of his own. He was perfectly happy to don his bag-full-of-dust ball cap — none of which, by the way, fell out, none of it poured down the sides of his head as I’d feared. Not immediately anyway. Robbie Steck, 10, has been a t-ball coaching assistant going on three years now. He is a very talented athlete, but more important, he has that generous, perfect, everyone’s-a-star, t-ball attitude. Robbie, I brag to his parents, and to whomever else will listen, is one of the first volunteers I’ve had in years who immediately and whole heartedly grasped the idea that you should (I think, I enjoin, I beg) ask each kid his or her name and then, when you throw a ball out to them, which we do after the batters hit his or her ball off the t, call that kid by name — “Aamil! Aamil!” “Kiera! Kiera!” Raven! Raven!” “Peter! Peter!” “Liam! Liam!” — and then when that kid looks up, you roll a ball directly to them. And this talented, big-hearted boy, Robbie Steck, does just that! He asks the kids their names and then he calls them by name — “Callie! Callie!” “Tyson! Tyson!” “Samuel! Samuel!” “Amani! Amani!” — and when the child looks up, he rolls a ball right to them. It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. So, I was selling hot dogs, bratwursts, metwursts, and cold drinks for the Lion’s Club, standing in awe before Sydney’s beauty and Robbie’s good looks — “We clean up pretty good,” their grandmother, the artist Cathy Pitstick, says — when 3-year-old Sammy announced, “It’s like Jimmy at t-ball!” “It is Jimmy,” Josh said and we laughed, all of us as happy as school girls going home for the holidays, the sunny, sparkling, ever-alert Sammy Steck, 3, especially. A joyous Bob Devine tossed balls out again (he wasn’t being mobbed, didn’t have two or three children climbing on his back, trying to rip a ball from his hands like last week, but he was beaming still). Callie Cary told me last week there had been this moment when people realized none of the “regular” volunteers had shown up. “What do we do?” they wondered. And then in an instant it was perfectly clear: “We know what to do!” And they did, and they do, all 20–25 adults who help out each week, both on and off the diamond. Sloane Bacon, 2, too excited, her mom Heather said, about t-ball Friday night to take her regular Friday afternoon nap, collapsed into that near-coma state exhausted toddlers can fall into. She was in her aunt Lindsey Hardiman’s arms in the bleachers, but once the action started, Lindsey handed her back to her mom. It is remarkable how long a 2-year-old is, how long they appear to be when they’re sprawled across their mother’s lap. I mean, lying there, Sloan looked like she was twice, maybe three times as long as she’d look standing on the ground. Matt Minde and Jennifer Berman brought a 10-gallon jug full of organic green tea they’d made, free drinks for everyone. A good thing, too, when the temperature’s near 90 like it was last Friday. Their 4-year-old, Joseph, played the perfect host, going around the diamond, empty cups in hand, sweetly, patiently, offering to bring you a drink if you wanted. I did and he did, thank you. Dylan Parker, 10, helped out with the bigger kids. He sat with them on the bench, chatting with them, entertaining them, charming them. Very impressive, I thought, for a 10-year-old to be so solicitous, so generous, so kind and loving. But that’s what you find at the Perry League, Yellow Springs’ t-ball program for all the community’s children ages 2–9 regardless of race, color or creed. We’re at Gaunt Park every Friday night from 6:30–8 p.m., trying to be solicitous, generous, kind and loving. Children can begin to play at anytime and there’s no requirement to come every week – come when you like, come when you can. We’ll be out there, trying to have as much fun as we can for the next 8 Friday nights, till our final potluck trophy-to-every-kid-who-shows-up night, Aug. 3. So why don’t you come on out and give us a try. We’d love it, we really would. Bulldog baseball: win one, lose one Saturday afternoon found the Bulldog players not at Street Fair but at Gaunt Park playing the Patterson Park Flyers. The Flyers jumped out to a 10–2 lead after just three innings. The Dogs climbed back slowly, starting with a solo home run over the left field fence in the third by Andrew Ferguson. They hit their stride in the fourth when they scored 3, then scored another run in the fifth followed by a 5-run sixth inning. Lots of passed balls and wild pitches led to much of the scoring, so that by the end of the sixth, the game was tied at 11. A stellar relief pitching performance by Jarrett Moon kept the Flyers scoreless until the seventh inning. Defensive highlights included the team’s first 6–4–3 double play coming off of a well-played grounder to short by Ethan Brown throwing to Lucas Donnell at second for the first out, followed by a quick turn from Donnell to Jonathon Haller at first base for the second out. Moon shut down the first three Flyers to the plate in the seventh. When the Dogs came to bat in the bottom of the seventh, it was with the idea of winning the game. Tyler Fox got on base with a hit, stole second and then made it home on an error by the shortstop to score the winning run for an exciting victory, Bulldogs 12, Flyers 11. There was baseball again on a beautiful Monday night at Gaunt Park. The Bulldogs jumped out to a 7–2 lead over the Patterson Park Raiders by the second inning on good hitting, including an RBI triple by Jamie Kitzmiller who then scored on a single from Haller. Unfortunately, the Raiders then held the Dogs scoreless for the next four innings while they chipped away at the 5-run lead, tying the game in the fifth. The wheels came off in the sixth when the Raiders scored 7 runs on too many fielding errors. The Dogs came back in the sixth when Kitzmiller scored on a single from Haller, who scored on a hit from Brown, but they ended the inning with the bases loaded. A final run in the seventh wasn’t enough to prevent the 10–14 loss, bringing the Bulldogs record to 2–2. Join us for games under the lights at Gaunt Park the next two Fridays at 8:30 p.m., or next Wednesday at 6:15. Minor league baseball opens The 2007 Minor League baseball season in Yellow Springs is off to a rousing start, thanks to some great weather and 20 new first-year players. A much-improved Dragons team combined strong defense and hot bats to defeat the Pirates 12–7 in the season opener Friday, June 8. Grant Reigelsperger and Sam Salazar led the Dragons by going 3 for 3 at the plate and each scoring a pair of runs. Salazar also made an amazing catch in left field in the fourth inning. Jake Savage and brothers Taran and Zane Pergram also each went 3 for 3, while veteran Desiree Clark held the outfield down and scored 2 runs. First year player Danny Grote scored a pair of runs along with Rhona Marion and rookie Tony Marinelli. Joey Plumer led the Pirates’ effort by going 2 for 2 at the plate and scoring a pair of runs. The action on Saturday, June 9, began with the Indians slugging the Reds 18–10. Batting leaders for the Indians were Sam Crawford and Noah Winold with 3 RBIs each, while Cayden Tong-Defusco added 3 runs as well. Adam Green hit a leadoff triple in the fourth, and later Fisher Lewis slid head first into third, saving the rally that cemented the lead for the Indians. The Reds were led with 3 hits each by Ethan Dewine and Carter Collins. The Pirates rallied in their final at-bat in Saturday’s second game to edge out the Yankees 10–9. The Pirates trailed by one in the bottom of the fifth when Augie Knemeyer knocked in base runners Nate Baggett and Kaner Kennedy to seal the victory. Isaiah Taylor led the Pirates with 3 hits in as many bats, including his first home run of the season, and a pair of runs batted in. Meanwhile, veterans Baggett and Devon Perry along with rookie Kennedy Butler all went 3 for 3 and each scored a pair of runs, while Joey Plumer and Kennedy Butler each added a run off a pair of base hits. Aaron Sherwood led the defense by fielding four infield hits for put-outs from his pitcher’s position. The Yankees pounded out 16 hits, led by veterans Jacob Whetsel, Ian Chick and Joe Thorp, who had 2 runs each, including Whetsel’s first home run in the third inning. League games are held Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings and Saturday mornings at the minor league field on the east side of Gaunt Park. Stay up to date on all the latest scores, standing and field conditions by visiting the league’s Web site at http://www.hometeamsonline.com/visit/?u=YSMINORLEAGUE.
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