Long Island Ducks: Atlantic League Championship Series

From the desk of:   THE WEBBED SPIKES NINE

2012

ATLANTIC LEAGUE

CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

 

 

 

 

GAME ONE

 

 

LONG ISLAND DUCKS

vs.

Lancaster Barnstormers

 

FROM

Clipper Magazine Stadium

Pennsylvania

 

 

 

 

 

LONG ISLAND DUCKS: Team Looking To Reverse Last Season's Championship Series Results.


The strategy Coach Baez employed last year will be the course he takes this season.  The Long Island Ducks decided to open the Division and Championship Series on the road last season.  While it worked out for them in Round One, the Ducks wound up losing the Atlantic League Championship to the York Revolution.

This season, the Ducks decided to open the first round of playoffs in Maryland against the Blue Crabs.  Lancaster had the superior record this past regular season.  But it works out the same.  The Ducks will open the series in Lancaster.  Games Three through Five (if necessary) will be hosted by Long Island.

The Ducks resurgent starting pitching will face the Atlantic League's top three hitters.  Barnstormers outfielder Blake Gailen won the circuit batting title with a .338 mark.  Adam Godwin finished second with a .327 batting average.  Fehldandt Lentini finished third behind his team mates and fellow outfielders, posting a .319 season average.  Long Island's Ray Navarrete finished tied for fourth place with a .309 mark.

Lancaster's Ryan Harvey led the Barnstormers with twenty seven home runs.  Brandon Sing led the Ducks with twenty six.  Fehldant Lentini led his team with ninety two RBI.  Ray Navarrete led the Ducks with ninety.

Along with the League's top hitters, Lancaster sports four of the five top winning starting pitchers.  Alan Johnson, Dwayne Pollock, and J.D. Durbin all tied for the Atlantic League lead with fourteen wins each.  Fellow staff member John Halama punched in with another thirteen victories.  Dwayne Pollock also won the League ERA title with a 2.30 earned run average.  Long Island's Bob Zimmermann leads all series pitchers with 126 strikeouts.  While reliever Jason Monti led the Ducks in wins this past season, Bob Zimmermann leads all Ducks starters with six victories.

The Lancaster Barnstormers won both half Freedom Division titles.  They finished with the overall best record in the league, posting eighty eight wins against fifty two losses.  Lancaster swept the two-time reigning champions; York Revolution.

The Ducks were the first half Liberty Division champs, and defeated the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs to become the season's overall division champ in round one.  After a 39-30 first half record, the Ducks struggled mightily in the second half, and ended the season with an overall 63-74 mark.

The Lancaster Barnstormers won their first and only Atlantic League title back in the 2006 season.  Two season's before that, the Long Island Ducks won their only Atlantic League championship.

 

 

Mike.BTB