Lions Den Gazette II

  New Lenox, IL - High Voltage came out tonight in the long road to defend their Summer League championship by taking on long time foes Paradise Bay and the Brew Jays in an opening day doubleheader.  Game one started out with the Volts jumping out to a 3-1 lead after an inning and pouring on five more in the top of the 2nd inning to open up an 8-1 lead against Paradise Bay.  Bay put up another run in their half of the 2nd to cut the lead to 8-2.  All things looked like the Summer championship game, except this time, the Volts had trouble scoring runs in the middle frames.  After scoring a run in the top of the 3rd, the Volts lead 9-2 and would not score again until the 6th inning.  In the meantime, Paradise plated two tallies in the 3rd inning to cut the lead to 9-4 and added six more runs to take the lead 10-9 heading into the 5th frame.  Both teams went scoreless in the 5th as Paradise held the one run advantage.  The Volts got a lift in the 6t...

  New Lenox, IL -  Some rando thoughts on things in no particular order.  Thanks to Jack for the title. By The Numbers - High Voltage was the class of the field heading into the playoffs but bad luck or fate had the team finishing in third place during the regular season.  Everything panned out like it should by the numbers except the Ivy win over BJ.  It does make sense when we all know, if you've ever read a playoff edition of the Gazette, that BJ struggles in its first playoff game.  Don't know why that is but they've underperformed their record nearly every "first playoff game" and in fact have lost some upsets in the process.  HV ended up with the most wins at 10, tied for the least losses at 3,best winning percentage at .769, most runs scored per game 15.31, and fewest runs allowed per game 7.77.  Folks, when you are statistically ahead at the end of the year in each category, you should be holding the championship trophy,  In this cas...

  New Lenox, IL - It's been a long time coming for the team that started in this league in 2015.  Dozens of players and non-players who were called into action have taken at-bats for the Master Batters, Gnaturals, and High Voltage. Last night was the night that everything came together and High Voltage got over the hump to win its first championship in the team's 19th season. The first game of the evening pitted the #3 seeded Volts against last year's Summer League champions #2 seeded Chuck's.  The game was nip and tuck all game long until Chuck's rolled a five-spot in the bottom of the sixth inning to take a 15-12 lead over the Volts.  High Voltage has seen this movie many times in the past and has gone out quietly to end the season without ever having gotten a chance to play in the finals.  This year seemed no exception with the Volts making two outs in the first three batters in the top of their final inning.  The tide changed with a runner on first whe...