By Frank Rizzo
Overall Record: 10–5
League Record: 9–3 OCIAA Division IV
Sectionals: Lost to Fallsburg 13-3 in the Class C semifinal.
Top Hitters: Billy Reichmann hit .542 with a .565 OBA. He slammed five doubles and drove in 13 runs. Jon Fanning batted .480 and led the team with 26 RBI and a .780 slugging average. Fanning also had a .581 OBA and hit four doubles, one triple, and three homers. Kyle Bright batted .453 with three doubles, 16 RBI, and a .500 OBA. Catcher Jake Sauer-Jones batted .404 with two doubles and 14 RBI. Justin Pinkel, who received the team’s Most Improved Player award, batted .386 with four doubles a triple and 13 RBI.
Top Pitchers: Reichmann went 4–1 with a 3.65 ERA and issued just five walks in 46 innings pitched. Bright had a 6–2 record with a 2.93 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 45.1 innings pitched.
Season Highlights: “Beating Fallsburg 10-2 (on May 16),” said first-year coach Kurt Scheibe Jr. “Also, coming back to beat Tuxedo (5-4 on May 24 with three runs in the seventh) to force a playoff (for the Division IV title against Fallsburg).
“We had a lot of big wins,” he added. “We beat Tri-Valley twice and they’ve had one of the best teams around in the past few years.”
Disappointments: “Losing to Fallsburg three times,” Scheibe said. “In the sectionals, nothing went right. In the [Division IV] championship game (a 6-4 loss to Fallsburg on June 5) we had the tying runs on second and third with one out [in the seventh] and failed to score.”
Final Thoughts: “If anyone told us before the season we would get as far as we did I would have taken it,” Scheibe said. “But once you go to [sectionals and championship games] you want to win. I had a good time in my first year of coaching. I enjoyed it.”