Jake Beyer of Hamilton Post 31 is greeted by his teammates after hitting a home run against Lawrence in the 7th inning. Photo by Amanda Ruch.
By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
July 11: Rick Freeman doesn’t make things complicated when it comes to winning a championship.
His Hamilton Post 31 baseball team did just that Tuesday night, taking a 10-3 victory over Lawrence at Eggerts Crossing to win the Mercer County American Legion League’s regular-season title by one game over rival Broad Street Park.
Hamilton finished the regular-season with an eight-game winning streak, the last six coming against MCALL opponents. It has won nine straight league games, with its only loss since June 26 coming against Washington Post 521 in the Hamilton Holiday Classic, which it eventually won by beating Washington in a rematch.
This all came after starts of 3-2 and 9-4.
What got it going? Nothing out of the ordinary, according to Freeman.
“We just show up every day and play, because you never know what will happen,” said the manager, who now has 998 wins between coaching Post 31 (818) and Mercer County Community College (180). “That’s what we did and it’s nice to win it.”
It extends Hamilton’s MCALL record to 30 league championships and gives Post 31 its second in three seasons.
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“This is really big,” said third baseman Chris Cote, who went 3-for-4 with two RBI and a run scored against Lawrence. “We’ve been grinding. The team’s really good, it’s good to get some recognition and it was a good team win tonight.”
Nearly the whole team contributed against Lawrence (10-10), which saw its 1-0 lead wiped out by Hamilton’s six-run fourth inning. Post 31 continued to tack on from that point, and Ryan Meszaros went the distance in hurling a six-hitter.
“He gutted it through,” Freeman said. “He hadn’t gone seven innings in a while and he hadn’t thrown this many pitches in a while. Usually even when he gives you length he gives you 75, 80, so he had to work a little harder than usual. He was tired the last few innings but he gutted his way through it.”
He was supported by a 14-hit attack, with the ridiculously hot Jake Beyer leading the way. Beyer went 4-for-4 with four RBI and put some icing on his cake with a two-run homer over the left-centerfield fence in the seventh.
“Right before I went up to the plate I told myself to swing hard, try to hit the ball up the middle and that’s how it usually works out when you hit a home run,” Beyer said. “That’s just all I did.”
In the past three games, Beyer has garnered an eye-popping 11 hits and 15 RBI. He was joined in the onslaught by Ryan Mostrangeli (3-for-4, 2 runs, RBI) and Brady Plunkett (2 hits, RBI, run).
Cote, whose mother Judy has taken on rock star status with her “Oh my God!” expression in a recent Trentonian picture, continues to come up big offensively hitting out of the eight hole.
“I’ve been seeing the ball great and putting good swings on it and things are happening,” the third baseman said.
Things are happening for Hamilton as well as it prepares for the start of the district tournament this weekend.
“We’re feeling good,” Cote said. “The team’s rolling.”
“We’re looking forward to it,” Freeman said. “I feel we’re playing our best baseball right now.”
And according to the skipper, that’s what can happen when you just show up and play.
But being good helps a little, too.
