The season has finally started and the first week of play is now history.  It was a busy first week with two league games and an early spring tournament.  It was also a relatively successful week with the team getting 4 wins against only one loss.  If week 1 is any indication every game this year will be highly contested.  What makes this even more challenging is that Jake O. has a torn finger tendon and will be out till the end of May – (mend fast and keep the throwing arm loose!).

   Game 1 started off against the Lincoln Rail Splitters.  The Storm led the entire game – but never by more than 2 runs.  Nick did an excellent job of holding Lincoln to only 2 runs throwing 77 pitches with 6 strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings.  Josh completed the game throwing 51 pitches with 5 strikeouts in the last 2 1/3.  Critical offence was provided by hits from Chase, Erich, Josh R, Josh J and Matt L with Matt B laying down a nice sacrifice bunt.  Nick had a two hit game with RBI’s provided by Erich, Josh R, and Josh J.   The final score was 6-4.

   Game 2 was a contest versus the Michigan Blue Jays Black team (the first of 4 games in-a-row at EMU).  This was a unique game in that two of our three 8th graders were attending a high school function leaving just 9 players to face a solid Blue Jays team.  Erich started and allowed only 1 run in his 4 innings throwing 77 pitches with 7 strikeouts.  Kyle finished the game throwing 38 pitches with 2 strikeouts in his 2 innings of work.  It was a good night offensively with 7 of 9 players reaching base at least 2 times.  The final score was 10-3.

   The first weekend of the season brought the first tournament of the year  -  “The Cage” at EMU.  We started off against another Blue Jays team (silver) on a very cool and rainy evening.  Poor weather or not – the team maintained their focus and put another mark in the ‘win’ column with a 7-2 final score.  Josh J. had a fantastic outing throwing only 83 pitches over 6 innings giving up only 5 hits while getting 11 strikeouts!  Kyle once again came in late to close the game and gave up only 2 runs on 29 pitches with a big time change-up to strike out the final batter and end the game.  The team had a good game offensively with hits coming from Matt, Nick, Noah, and Josh J.  Multiple hits were provided by Chase, Erich, Josh R., and Jake D.  The game ended with a 7-2 victory.

   The second game of the tournament was against Milan.  The team started out quickly on the offensive side taking a first inning 3-1 lead with hits from Matt B. and Erich after Chase drew a base on balls.  We added one additional run in the 2nd inning with hits from Jake D. and Kyle.  Scoring was completed in the 3rd inning with 9 batters coming to the plate and hits provided by Erich, Nick, and Josh J.   Erich started and pitched all 6 innings giving up only 1 run on 69 pitches with 6 strikeouts.   The Final was 9-1.  We finished first in our pool and the overall 3rd seed going into the final day.

   The third game (and first of the tourney playoffs) was a repeat against last Wednesday’s Blue Jays Black team.  Nick was the starting pitcher and had a herculean effort - throwing 6 2/3 innings.  Unfortunately, the cold had caught up with the Canton Storm bats resulting in only 5 hits (Josh R., Nick, Noah, Josh J., and Kyle) producing 0 runs.  Because of the excellent pitching performance from Nick – the Storm was down only 1-0 after 5 innings.  The final was 0-5.

So a tough end to the weekend – but overall, a very good start to the 2012 season.