6/19/2009

The Berks Legion League agreed to extend its regular season as a result of the recent rash of rain-included postponements. Teams now have until July 6 to complete their 15 game schedule, as opposed to the original July 2 deadline.

6/17/2009

The Lynx travel to Hamburg tonight and play at 6:30 at Community Park

6/17/2009

Oley 7, Muhlenberg 3 (8): At Oley Youth Field, Sean Townsley keyed a five-run eighth with a two-run single as the Lynx (1-4, 4-6) rallied past the A's (4-4, 10-5) in a game called after eight innings because of darkness.

Andrew Christman went 2-for-3, Geoff Eddinger went 2-for-4 and Tim Shores drove in three runs for the Lynx.

Pete McGinley had a two-run double for Muhlenberg. Townsley struck out 8 and the Lynx made no errors.

Boxscore

Muhlenberg  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  3  3   1

Oley            0  2  0  0  0  0  0  5  7  0

Win Steven Koenig

6/15/2009

Conrad Weiser 7, Oley 4: At Oley Youth Field, Aaron Carman and Mike Weinhold delivered late two-run doubles to help the Scouts (2-3, 4-4) hold off the Lynx (0-4, 3-6).

Carman, who went 2-for-5 with three RBIs, drove in two to trigger a three-run seventh that put Weiser ahead 5-2. Weinhold then doubled home two more in the eighth, when the Scouts iced it.

Andy Christman had three hits, including two doubles, and drove in three for Oley.

6/12/2009

Lynx vs Conrad Weiser Sunday at 5:00PM at the Youth League.

6/11/2009

Fleetwood game out no new date set.

Hamburg game rescheduled for next Wednesday June 17th 6:30 @ Hamburg

Gregg Post Game scheduled for Saturday June 20th 11:00AM at the Youth League.

6/10/2009

By Phil Haddad Boyertown times.

The past few seasons have not been kind to the Oley Valley American Legion baseball program. The state championship team in the mid-80's has struggled just to get enough players to form a team.

So far this season, the Lynx are 0-3 in the Berks League, but they have won three of their five non-league games. Their three league losses were to West Lawn, Exeter and Boyertown. The Lynx will have to replay their game against Greg Post which was tied 10-10 and called due to darkness. The game will be replayed over in its entirety.

"We had one bad inning against Boyertown where we gave up six runs," said Oley manager Fred Van Gulik. "Our pitching couldn't stop them and we left 13 men on base. If we would have played the way I know we can, the result would have been a little different. I am pleased so far. We're getting better each game."

Van Gulik's goal is the make the playoffs. At 0-3, it's still possible. There were some positives that they could take away from their three losses. But the that the only way to make the playoffs is to win games. Moral victories don't get you to the playoffs.

Van Gulik feels that the playoffs are still a reachable goal for the Lynx, but they can't afford to to keep losing league games. "There are still 12 league games left," said Van Gulik. "We'll know something more after this week. If we don't beat them (Hamburg and Fleetwood), our chances don't look so good."

Even with the very successful high school program, Van Gulik feels that it's not fair to compare the high school program to the legion season. A winning high school season doesn't mean a winning legion season.

High school games are only seven innings, and legion plays nine. The pitchers aren't use to pitching those extra two innings. Another difference is that legion doesn't have the re-entry rules and courtesy runners for the pitchers and catchers like high school.

On the positive side, the Lynx have some capable arms in southpaw Ryan Kline and 6'-7" Sean Townsley.

"One of our weaknesses is our bullpen," said Van Gulik. "Our bullpen has been giving up too many runs. When you have guys like Townsley and Kline that have to pitch every four days, you have to rely some on your bullpen.

Townsley gave up eight runs in a little over three innings in a recent game. That was his worst outing of the season.

"When you play for a program like Oley, which is one of the smallest program we don't have the luxury of having seven or eight pitchers out of your 18 players," said Van Gulik. "Nine inning games are tough for us."

Returning from last year's team are Townsley, Ryan Kline, Seth Hartman, Andrew Christman, Ryan Buday (who was released from Boyertown), Geoff Eddinger, Ian De Lancey and James Pisker.

"Sean has pro potential," said Van Gulik. "He worked very hard this winter and I had a strict weight lifting program for him. He also ate right. He's 6'-7" and weighs 210 pounds and could buff out at 240. He's going to be a massive kid and he is well built. I wouldn't be surprised if he signed with a pro team in the next two years.

"Ryan is a good left-handed pitcher and spots his ball well. He gets ahead in count to the hitters but we don't put the hitters away like we should. We base our game philosophy on attacking the strike zone because we want our pitchers to go longer than seven innings. If you throw over 100 pitches, you're out of the game. He has a good stick and he hits the ball well. He hits the ball to all fields.

"Seth is our infield general and our catcher. He's come a long way and he's getting better every day. I asked him to come out early so I could work with him in the cage. Seth needs a little guidance on how pitchers will attack him as a hitter. Seth will be a great asset and he has another two or three years in legion. He's an all around athlete

"Andrew plays second or third base for us and he has a great attitude. He's a well-rounded and well-mannered kid. He knows how to play the game. He's hard on himself when he's not productive.

"Ryan was released by Boyertown and I expressed my gratitude to them. This is the first time in a long time that a player from Boyertown was released which gave him the opportunity to play somewhere else. It shows that not only is Boyertown a very good program, they care about their players.

"He's an outfielder and third basemen and runs and hits well. I was happy to be able to add a player with a Boyertown attitude who is always there, always comes in early, working hard and doing anything for the team. Slowly that's starting to rub off on some of the guys on the team.

"I saw James hit in high school and he hit to the right side. I want to see him hit the ball to all fields with authority. He's been doing nothing else and went 7-for-8 this weekend. He's just smashing the ball. James is a great hitter. If he develops his body, I could see James and Townsley signing pro. He's a great kid to have and is a real team player.

"Geoff is a real classy guy. He's a great kid and became our leadoff hitter after Sosh left. He's been doing it well and Geoff runs the bases well. He's a motivator. Ian is one of our pitchers in our pen. He's going to be a valuable asset to our team."

There are two young players who are looking to make an impact on this year's Lynx team. They are Steven Koenig and 15 year old Zach Eddinger - Geoff's younger brother. Koenig will be the sole pitcher returning to the Oley High School team next year. Steven can play both shortstop and second base. Van Gulik likes that he keeps his pitches down along with having a good breaking pitch.

Zach has become a switch hitter, and Van Gulik feels that he still needs some work. He feels that Zach is a very gifted kid along with being a very well-rounded kid. Van Gulik sees Zach as one of the better players in Oley in the next couple of years if he continues to work.

There is one significant change in the Berks League this season. The season has been shortened and the playoffs have been pushed up a week, which doesn't sit well with Van Gulik.

"Anybody can win from anybody this year and that wasn't the case last year," said Van Gulik. "We went from 22 league games to 15 games. That really isn't promoting the game of baseball.

"These kids are paying a lot of money to play and now they're playing seven games less. Is that something that legion needs to look into? Yes. There is a lot of dissatisfaction that we're not playing as many games as last year around the league. Every year things change and there's no consistency. We want consistency, but we don't get it. Legion, in my opinion, isn't going in a good direction."

Phil Haddad is a free lance writer and all comments can be sent to writersprts@dejazzd.com

From The Boyertown times

The Oley Valley American Legion baseball team dropped three games this week and are 0-3 in the Berks Leageu and 2-6 overall.

On Saturday, May 30, the Lynx were home against West Lawn. The Owls used back-to-back four-run innings to roll by the Lynx, 14-2. The Lynx scored both of their runs in the bottom of the last inning.

Ryan Kline had two hits including a home run to lead the four-hit Oley Valley offense. James Pisker added a double. Sean Townsley was the losing pitcher.

On Tuesday, June 2, the Lynx traveled to Exeter and came home with a 10-2 loss. The Blue Jays netted six runs in the second, then two in the third and two more in the fourth. Kline had a pair of doubles to lead the Oley Valley offense and Townsley added two singles. Geoffrey Eddinger stole a pair of bases.

Over the weekend, he Lynx traveled to the Berks defending champions from Boyertown. Once again a big inning hurt the Lynx as Boyertown plated six runs in the bottom of the third and defeated the Lynx, 10-2.

Oley had 10 hits in the game, including two from Seth Hartman (one run scored) and Zach Eddinger.

On Saturday, June 6, the Lynx played host to Gregg Post. The game ended in a 9-9 tie after nine innings due to darkness. The game will start over from the beginning at a later date.

The Lynx scored four times in the fourth and four more times in the fifth to take a 9-0 lead. But The Keys came back with back-to-back four run innings of their own to tie the game up.

Pisker was swining a hot bat on the night going 4-for-4 (two singles and two doubles) while Townsley ripped a single and a double and Christman had a pair of hits. Geoffrey Eddinger stole three bases.

Townsley did the pitching for Oley, fanning eight Gregg Post batters in 5 1/3 innings.

6/9/2009

Lynx try to recuperate from 3 losses. Will play against Hamburg at the Reds tonight at 6:30PM

New date set for rematch against Gregg Post 6/20 11:00 at the Youth League.

6/6/2009

Loss against Boyertown

Although the Lynx did not commit any errors one bad inning decided the game in favour of the Bears. DeLancey lost his control in de 3rd inning and even Kline could not stop the bears who scored 6 times. We left 13 runners on base said coach van Gulik, we just did not convert on the many scoring chances the Bears gave us. We are playing better baseball each game but still have 0 wins to count for. The Lynx had runners on base 8 out of the 9 innings and could only produce 2 runs in a 10-2 loss.

6/2/2009

The Lynx gave up 10 runs against Exeter and only manage to score 2 in a game that was called by the umpire due to mysterious darkness that only he seemed to see. The Lynx defense gave up 8 Unearned runs and when you make that many mistakes it’s difficult to win.

Keeping score correctly these days seems to be hard as well. According to the official box-score handed in by Exeter’s scorekeeper the lynx only made 2 errors but anyone that was at this game saw that they were being nice since by our count a few more mistakes were committed by the Lynx.

Box-score:

Lynx      0 0 2 0 0 0 0  2    5 2

Exeter    0 6 2 2 0 0 0 10 12 2

6/1/2009

With ace Townsley on the mound the Lynx lose home opener 2-14 against Westlawn. Townsley clearly had an off day as he gave up 9 runs in 3 2/3 innings. The Lynx had several scoring chances in the beginning of the game but were punished by bad several baserunning mistakes. We just did not make the most of the control problems of Magrann said a dissapointed coach van Gulik after the game. In games against top teams you don't get that many scoring oppertunities and when you can't covert any you will run behind the facts all night. The Lynx only produced 4 hits including a solo HR from Kline.

Box-score:

Westlawn  0 1 4 4 2 2 1 - 14 15 0
Oley.         0 0 0 0 0 0 2 -  2   4 1

Picking Legion leader a real Bear this year

Never discount Boyertown. Beyond that, Berks Legion is a true toss-up

By Don Stewart

Reading Eagle

A title game without Boyertown, Shillington or West Lawn? That's the Halley's Comet of the Berks Legion League.

In the last 41 years, it's only happened once. Banking on it to occur this summer is kind of like betting against the Harlem Globetrotters, so we're not suggesting 2009 will mimic 2001, when Birdsboro edged Muhlenberg.

But there is a chance.

With the league's Big Three reloading, there could be more of a competitive balance in the Berks League. At least 12 of the 16 teams appear to be legit playoff contenders, and no one seems to be bad enough to write off in preseason.

Toss in a regular season shortened from 21 to 15 games, and anything can happen.

Well, maybe.

"I would say it will come down to whoever is hot at the right time," Conrad Weiser coach Dustin Sands said. "It should be an interesting season, especially with the schedule being down to 15 games."

Weiser, which returns much of last year's playoff squad, is among several dark horses entering Thursday's league openers.

Exeter, Gregg Post, Muhlenberg, Daniel Boone and Topton are among the others that look capable of making a run at the title, along with Shillington and West Lawn.

The preseason favorite is no surprise, however.

"From what I'm looking at, there should be several teams in the hunt," said Rick Moatz, coach of defending league, Region 2 and Pennsylvania State champion Boyertown.

The Bears lost the heart of last year's group, with slugger Nole Saylor, lefty Todd Speilman and second baseman Brent Ruminski having used up their eligibility, while state-tournament MVP Shayne Houck (Kutztown) and standout outfielder Cody Kulp (Shippensburg) elected not to return from college. Another key starter, Logan Herb, will not come out for Legion.

"Boyertown did lose players, but for some reason they always have a kid or two to replace those guys," Sands said. "The opportunity (for everyone else) might be a little bit better, but Boyertown is going to win games.

"Hopefully the chances are a little bit better this year, but who knows?"

Moatz said his club will be a mix of "old and new." He did get three key players back from college in shortstop Brandon Sullivan (Ursinus) and pitchers Ethan Moser (DeSales) and Nate Schnell (Ursinus).

Moatz said pitching is the top area of concern for the three-time defending state champs. With the loss of his top two starters in Houck and Speilman, Moser and Schnell will be asked to step up, along with returnee Aaron Wilkins.

Still, regardless of which players are on his roster, Moatz said the goals are always set on the state championship and beyond.

"We always shoot for it," he said. "With some of the people that are gone, we're looking at is as an opportunity for some of these other young guys to step up and take over. We feel we have a lot of players who love the game and love to work at it. Hopefully through that we'll be able to make it through states."

Behind Boyertown, there's no clear-cut No. 2 team in the preseason. The Berks League high school season was fairly balanced, with Gov. Mifflin eventually beating Oley Valley for the league title.

One of the top spoilers could be a team that didn't make the playoffs in the spring. With most of last year's team that finished third in the Berks Legion League playoffs returning, Exeter has a deep pitching staff and key contributors from High Point, Holy Name, Central Catholic and Antietam.

"It seems like it could be more competitive," West Lawn coach Tony Matz III said. "I thought the high school playoffs were fairly open.

"I think the Legion season is a little similar, especially since it's one time through the league and it's a fairly short season."

Contact Don Stewart: 610-371-5065 or dstewart@readingeagle.com.

To view complete article click this link http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=140297