The Jacksonville MABL 2011 playoffs came to an end on Saturday, August 10th with an exciting championship series.
The #2 seeded Jacksonville Indians faced off against the #4
Jacksonville Athletics for the second consecutive year.
This year, the A's extinguished the Indians' hopes of repeating as champions by winning games 1 and 3 of the series
behind the arm of Chris Holt.
In game 1 on Wednesday, Holt pitched a complete game shutout giving up five hits to the Indians. The Athletics offense was
sparked by Randy Miller's 2 hits and RBI as well as a 2 RBI hit in the 8th inning by
Jarrod Simmons in his first plate appearance
of the game. The Athletics took game 1 with a score of 3-0.
Game 2 was the first game of what turned out to be a double-header on Saturday. The Indians' bats found life in game
2 getting
15 hits against the A's. Player coach Joe Hellett led his team with 3 hits and 2 RBIs and his brother
Devon Hellett had 2 hits and 2 RBIs.
Mike Cleghorn went 2 for 2 with a walk and an RBI. The Indians'
Jeremiah Dees dominated from the mound in Game 2. Dees gave up just
2 runs on 4 hits. All 4 hits came in the 5th inning, while Dees allowed only four other baserunners in the other eight innings combined.
The Indians tied up the championship series with an 8-2 win.
With the series tied 1-1, game 3 would be the deciding factor for the 2011 champion. With only two days rest, the A's again turned to
Chris Holt to attempt to shut down the Indians. Holt delivered with another authoritative performance. He pitched 8 innings and held
the Indians to just 2 unearned runs and striking out 10. Holt retired the first 10 batters of the game before giving up the first of only 2 hits the Indians
would get the entire game. The Athletics came back strong on offense in game 3 as well.
Wes Burgess led the team to 10 runs
with his 3 for 3 performance adding 3 RBIs giving him a .444 average for the series.
The 2011 Championship MVP award was given to pitcher Chris Holt for his dominant performance from the mound. Holt pitched 17 innings in the three
game series giving up 7 hits, 3 walks, and 0 earned runs with 25 strike outs.
Congratulations to the 2011 Jacksonville Athletics for their first Jacksonville MABL championship in only their third year in the league.