The Manchester Youth Baseball Association was in action on Monday night with games in 4 of the 5 divisions. 

In the 8U Division, Interstate Auto edged KK’s 13 to 11 and Dr. J won a thriller over Freedom Automotive 16 to 15.  In the early game, Interstate got 2 runs in the bottom of the 5^th inning to win the thriller.  Kadon had 3 singles and a double and scored 4 runs to lead the Interstate squad.  Lhane had a single, a double, a home run and scored 3 times for KK’s.  The nightcap featured a battle of unbeaten teams as Dr. J’s and Freedom each came in with 2 and 0 records.  Dr. J’s built a 9 to 1 lead through 3 innings only to see Freedom rally for 4 runs in the 4^th and 8 in the 5^th.  A 2 run rally in the bottom of the 5^th came up short as Dr. J’s held on for the win.  For Dr. J’s, Kolton had a home run, a double and 2 singles while scoring 3 times.  Rylan added 3 singles and a double.  For Freedom, Bentley, Davion and Deacon hit home runs. 

In the 10U Division, Viam topped 1^st National Bank 9 to 5 and State Farm handcuffed Chico’s Bail Bonds 12 to 2.  In the opener, Viam plated 3 runs in the 1^st inning and never trailed in the game.  Bryce Spencer hit a round-tripper for Viam.  Steve Lombardo had a triple, a double and 3 RBI for 1^st National.  In the late game, State Farm jumped out to an 8 to 1 lead and never looked back.  Levi Rossman had a single, a triple, a home run, 3 runs scored and 3 RBI for State Farm.  Hyatt Moss and Xander Meeks also added home runs for State Farm.  Kaden Brewer doubled and scored for Chico’s.

In the 12U Division, Clower Automotive outslugged First Vision Bank 20 to 9 and Powers Storage felled Peoples Bank 19 to 1.  In game #1, Clower Automotive stayed unbeaten as they pounded out 11 hits and got 10 walks in their win.  M.J. Rollman had 2 doubles, 2 singles and scored 4 runs for Clower.  Lane Johnson had a double and a walk and scored twice for First Vision Bank.  In Game #2, Powers Storage also got their 3^rd win of the year in impressive fashion.  After Peoples got a run in the top of the 1^st inning, Powers Storage rallied for 6 in the bottom of the 1^st before adding 8 more in the second to salt away the win.  Austin Gipson had a walk, single and a double while scoring 3 runs for Powers.  Cole Shedd had an RBI double to lead Peoples.   

In the 18U Division, the Yankees swept the Manchester Braves in a doubleheader 5 to 3 and 9 to 1.  In the opener, the Braves jumped out to a 3 to 0 lead in the 1^st inning, only to see the Yankees rally for 3 runs in the bottom of the 5^th to take the win.  Cody Esslinger had 2 hits for the Yankees.  Cole Bryce laced a double for the Braves.  In the nightcap, the Yankees jumped out to an early lead with 4 runs in the top of the 1^st and 5 more in the second inning.  The Braves got their lone run in the 2^nd inning.  Owen Neel had a walk and a triple and scored twice for the Yankees.  Jacob Sherrill walked, has a stolen base and scored the Braves only run. 

The league returns to action on Tuesday with a full slate of 9 games in 5 divisions. 

Tuesday MYBA Schedule

We already knew it here in Nashville, and the rest of the NHL’s fans agree.

Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne’s first-career tally has been voted the Goal of the Year in the 2020 NHL Fan Choice Awards. The netminder received 42.3 percent of the votes beating out Connor McDavid (25 percent), Andrei Svechnikov (20 percent) and Matthew Tkachuk (12.7 percent) to earn the accolade.

More than two million votes were submitted from NHL fans all over the world to determine the winners of 20 categories, and Rinne’s margin of victory was greater than most.

“For sure [it’s a dream come true], I’m not going to lie,” Rinne said following Nashville’s win in Chicago back on Jan. 9. “I understand it might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I really enjoyed it. It was an awesome feeling seeing the puck go in… But I’m trying to see it and then [Roman Josi] and [Nick] Bonino, I think they were going nuts, and it was pretty cool. I just threw my hands up in the air and tried to try to act as cool as I can.”

Rinne was the first goaltender to score since 2013 and became just the 12th goalie in NHL history to be credited with a goal. There have been 15 goalie goals scored in League history, and perhaps even more impressive, Rinne is one of only seven netminders to actually shoot it himself. (The others occurred with a team accidentally putting the puck in their own empty net on a delayed penalty or in extra-attacker situations, and the respective goaltenders were the last to touch the puck.)

There’s never a bad time to relive the goalie goal. Once more, here’s Rinne in all his glory, as well as some other clips featuring the Finn.

With dates and opponents set, Nashville SC returned to full-team training on Monday ahead of the MLS is Back Tournament in Orlando.

The Boys in Gold are set to face Orlando City SC, Philadelphia Union and Chicago Fire FC in the group stage of the month-long competition kicking off July 8. It’s an unprecedented competition for unprecedented circumstances, but Head Coach Gary Smith will make sure his players are ready to face whatever each opponent brings.

“We’re going to go into a format that is not natural to any of the teams that are playing in it,” Smith said. “I certainly haven’t, with a professional outfit, played in a situation like this. It will be very different. I’m sure it will be for a lot of people. What I will say is we have a limited time here. Three games, we have a two-week tournament that we want to turn into a four-week tournament and unless we do well in those first three games then we could be coming home fairly swiftly and it’ll feel like a bit of a whirlwind. So, we need to be ready, we surely need to be focused. In terms of planning for it, I know who we have now and I can have a lot closer look at some of the footage, albeit it limited at this early stage in the season.”

The tournament format, with a group stage leading into a knockout stage, is similar to a FIFA World Cup, but with one added caveat: the group stage matches count towards the regular season standings, as MLS plans to resume the regular season in home markets after the MLS is Back Tournament.

While plenty of Nashville SC players have experience in international cup competitions like the World Cup or Gold Cup, captain Dax McCarty thinks the regular season incentive in the group stage will bring extra energy to the group stage.

“I think there is incentive to try and win every single game,” McCarty said. “It’s up to the coaching staff to decide how they want to rotate and keep guys fresh, but as far as I’m concerned I want to win this tournament. So if you ask me, I want to play every game as much as I can, as many minutes as I can, and go on and lift a trophy at the end of this. In order to do that, you have to get out of your group and in order to get out of your group you have to accumulate points. Then the cherry on top is that those points will go towards the regular season. As far as I’m concerned, there’s just so much incentive to go out every single game and try to play open, exciting, attacking soccer to try to win games and score goals and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

Nashville SC enters the tournament after suffering two narrow one-goal losses to start the 2020 season before it was paused. McCarty saw a lot of positives in those two matches that give him confidence in the team’s ability to make some noise in Orlando.

“We’ve been so solid defensively in our first two games,” McCarty said. “I have been so happy and proud of the way that that our team was able to defend against two elite MLS teams, two perennial MLS Cup contenders with exciting attacking players. We were able to severely limit the amount of chances that both of those teams had. On the flip side of that, our attacking play needs to get better. That’s something we recognize and our coaching staff and attacking players have been working hard to make sure that when we get into good attacking positions, we do more with the chances that we create. There are no participation points. Obviously we realize we lost our games and that doesn’t sit well with me, that doesn’t sit well with our team and our whole staff. Part of the reason we’re so excited to get back on the field is to take those positives from those first two games and try to turn those into wins and into points.”

The MLS is Back Tournament kicks off July 8 in Orlando.