Black on black trouble for hitters; sports co-op in the works
I?ve seen way too many games like Saturday?s regional semifinal game on Steven Schalk Memorial Field where the local team of interest struggles at the plate and the outs come all too quickly. The fifth inning comes around, and just like that (finger snap), there are only nine outs left to string together some hits and score some runs. The sixth inning starts and there are only six left in the season, and so on. Harbor Light Christian brought in the one-two punch of brothers Andrew and Mark Fila against Rogers City.
At the beginning of the season, high school baseball coaches in the state liked Harbor?s pitching staff so much they were bestowed with Division IV?s No. 1 ranking. The way they mowed Huron batters down, they certainly looked like a pair of No. 1?s out there. Fourteen of the 21 Rogers City outs went down on strikes. Four were on called third strikes, which head coach Howard Madsen wasn?t too pleased about after the game. IT WASN?T a good day for hitters from either school in that area, as the home plate umpire liked pitches on the lower outside part of the plate. He not only was calling strikes on the black part of the black. He had a wide strike zone, but was calling it both ways; so, I?ve got no complaints. I didn?t have any. That doesn?t mean the batters didn?t have any.
A Harbor batter went down on a black on black, called third strike from Rogers City starter Tyler Szumila and said, ?How do I hit that?? Madsen wanted his troops to get the bat on the ball and make the Harbor defense make some plays and it just didn?t work out. In the early going it seemed to work, when Szumila reached base on an error and scored on a RBI single by Jordan Zempel, but the chances were few and far between from there. Limiting a team to three runs, as Szumila did, is certainly enough to win on most days.
ROGERS CITY High School (RCHS) athletic director Pat Lamb recently met with the Posen Consolidated School athletic committee for preliminary discussion about a proposal to establish cooperative efforts with some of the athletic teams. ?The two we talked about were wrestling and cross country,? said Lamb at Monday?s school board meeting, ?with their students coming on board with Rogers City teams in a cooperative effort.? Even with the enrollment of the schools added together, RCHS would still be classified as Division IV in both sports, he said. ?We also looked at the possibility of sending our track athletes to Posen to participate with them in a co-op for track and field,? said Lamb.
There is a certain date that an agreement needs to be in place. The deadline for fall sports was April 15, so it would be too late for any Posen kids to run cross country with RCHS at the end of summer. For winter sports, it is August 15.
?STEVEN SCHALK Memorial Field looked terrific for the weekend?s regional tournament. It already is a top-notch facility for watching tournament games, but I can only imagine what it will be like if the revitalized boosters get their new concession/restroom facility. ?Just before the game between Rogers City and Harbor Light, some of the out of town players were bringing in their equipment into the dugout and were impressed, with a couple of players saying, ?great dugout.? I think they really liked the benches.
?Lamb publicly acknowledged Keith Konieczny for securing the grants for the new softball field at Gilpin Memorial Field, ?bringing in topsoil, the many hours of labor he?s put in up there. It is looking great. Keith is just a workhorse.? ?Lamb also acknowledged all the volunteers and people who helped with field maintenance during the tournament, the boosters for the long day they put in, as well as scorekeepers and announcers