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Monarchs Gold Win NABF College World Series |
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Written by Steve Timofeev
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Monday, 11 August 2008 09:42 |
The Ohio Monarchs Gold captured their first NABF World Series title Monday morning in dramatic fashion. Casey Winckowski singled in Kyle O'Connell in the bottom of the ninth with 2 outs. The win captured the title over a 5 day period of baseball. The Gold seemed to play their best baseball of the season with timely hitting, good pitching, and excellent defense.
The Gold started Ben Kauder in the championship game against Long Island Astros and he proved to be up to the task. The Astros struck first in the top of the 2nd inning by scoring 3 runs. The Astros loaded the bases with a hit batter and 2 singles. They scored on a sacrifice fly, an error, and another single. In the bottom of the inning the Monarchs came back with a run when Cory Hornyak singled and Brandon McFarland followed with a double down the right field line that scored Hornyak.
Kauder settled down over the next 4 innings and did not allow Long Island to score again. In the 6th inning Winkowski opened with a single was sacrificed to 2nd on a Brett Howard bunt. Jake Cappelletty followed with a ground out that moved Winkowski over to 3rd. This proved to be very important because Hornyak followed with an in field single to score the run and pull the Gold within 3-2.
Tim Corbey relieved Kauder in the top of the 7th inning. He worked a relatively easy inning. However, in the 8th Corbey got into trouble when the Astros put runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out. Corbey used a double move to get the runner on 1st in a run down who was eventually tagged out by Ryan Mouch and the Gold almost got the runner on 3rd on the same play after he was also caught in a run down. The next batter hit a ground ball to Mouch to end the threat. In the bottom of the inning Cappelletty drilled a home run over the right field fence that barely stayed fair and the game was tied 3-3.
 In the ninth the Astros had the winning run reach 3rd base with 2 outs but were not able to plate him. This set up the dramatic finish in the bottom of the 9th. The Gold finished as the Toledo Champs as well as the World Series champs. The team finished the season with a 38-11 record. They were 5-1 in the series. Cory Hornyak was selected the MVP of the tournament. Brian Koehl and Jake Cappelletty were also selected on the all tourney team. Cappelletty also was the Home Run champ. The Monarchs Gold have alot of young talented players that will hopefully be back together next year to defend their title.
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