Thunder Eliminated From SLABA Tournament

The long, hot summer is over for the Johnny Mac Thunder varsity baseball team in the St. Louis Amateur Baseball Association.

The Thunder fell to the Jefferson County Barnstormers 17-4 Friday at Mehlville High School.

That assured the Thunder of ninth place in the nine-team league. Only the top eight teams qualify for the post-season tournament which begins Saturday.

"I really wasn't sure what to expect this summer," Johnny Mac coach Steve Braun said. "We are a very young team. A lot of the guys are playing two years up."

The inexperience showed all summer and especially in the three games against the Barnstormers.

Jefferson County had defeated Johnny Mac 20-0 and 17-1 in games earlier in the regular season.

"We have been averaging eight and a half runs a game," Barnstormer coach Brian Garner said. "I remember scoring 11 runs in the first inning against this team but we usually score more late like we did today. Sometimes we go crazy the second or third time through the lineup."

Barnstormer leadoff hitter Tyler Smreker set the tempo Friday. He led off the game with a homer and ended it in five innings with a grand slam. He also had two other hits and a walk. He scored five runs and drove in six.

"They really hit the ball well," Braun said of the Barnstormers, who put the game away with a nine-run fifth inning. "We made a comeback and were in it until that last inning."

The Thunder trailed 7-4 through three and a half innings and it could have been even closer.

Johnny Mac stranded nine runners in the first four innings, including the bases loaded in both the third and fourth innings.

"We have been leaving a lot of runners on lately," Braun said. "We have gotten the hits but it doesn't show with the runs on the scoreboard. We just have not gotten the clutch hit."

Sean Kennedy had a single and double and was robbed of a third hit by Doug Fromm on his other at-bat Friday.

Walks did in Johnny Mac starter Matt Regan. The southpaw walked nine in four plus innings. He walked five, including four in a row, in a three-run second inning.

Regan walked two more in another three-run inning in the third. Both scored as Smreker had an RBI single and Fromm drove in two with a triple.

The Thunder scored single runs in the second and third innings and added two more in the fourth. But the nine runners left on base prevented the big inning.

The 17-and-under Thunder look for a winning record as they conclude their season Saturday. Johnny Mac, which is 5-4, will play the Stars at 9 a.m. at Principia High School.