TABC Baseball Team Learns Lessons in Columbus

On Sunday, April 19th, the TABC Storm baseball team boarded their flight for Columbus, Ohio for the Columbus Baseball invitational tournament. They were going to Ohio with one goal which had eluded them in the past two years: to win the championship. Boasting an impressive pitching rotation, the Storm believed the title was theirs for the taking.

Teams from all around the country play in the tournament, including teams from Chicago, California, Florida, NJ and NY. The tournament has been around for some time, this year being the 10th year of the tournament’s existence.

In the team’s first game, TABC faced the Katz Yeshiva High School from Boca Raton, Florida. The game started off with multiple runs by the TABC Storm, and culminated in a 13-3 victory for TABC. Liam Levy was the starting pitcher for TABC, and finished without any unearned runs after four innings. Ben Antosofsky closed the game for TABC, and also conceded no runs.

The next day, TABC played against Ida Crown Jewish Academy from Chicago. Ida Crown was the Storm’s main competition in the tournament, and the two teams were locked in a pitchers' battle between each team’s ace, including Yechiel Keiser for the Storm and J Dimbert for Ida Crown.

Ultimately, the game went into extra innings, tied at one, following an unsportsmanlike argument between Ida Crown’s coach and the umpire. The argument consisted of a batter who was not declared as a pinch hitter, who hit a game-tying single. After consultation, the umpire ruled that the run would count, but the batter was out. In the extra frame, Ida Crown finally broke the tie and scored the winning run.

Jacob Blumenthal, a first baseman on the team, felt that, “It was unprofessional of the coach of Ida Crown, and he should have addressed the problem before the hit, as the at-bat was already in possession and a strike had already been called. The coach acted poorly and unprofessionally during the event.”

Although they lost to Ida Crown, the Storm still advanced to the championship bracket, where they faced the Haftr Hawks in the semifinal. The two strong squads played a close game the whole way through, but the Storm was able to edge out the Hawks 4-2.

The Storm went into the final round, where they once again faced Ida Crown. The Storm came out and went up 6-0 in the game. But Ida Crown cut down the deficit and eventually tied the game, sending it to extra innings. Ida Crown eventually beat the Storm 8-7, an upsetting result after being up 6-0.

Yonadav rimberg, an outfielder for the Storm, was unhappy with the result of this game but looked toward the future, saying that he, “felt bad for the seniors, but hopefully next year we can win it for them.”

With all the confidence they gained in the Columbus tournament, the TABC storm baseball team will look to win the yeshiva league baseball title next season.