2016 Orange County Dodgers Cap Solid Year With So Cal 44+ Title

So Cal MSBL/MABL 44+ Division

Orange County Dodgers 10, Angels 2

‘Munson Takes Charge on the Bump’

Submitted by Dennis Paulson, Orange County Dodgers

I’ve been a high school and college football and track coach for over 22 years and stopped coaching in 2013. I then concentrated on becoming exclusively the catcher for the Orange County Dodgers in the So Cal MSBL.

In the middle of this year were rode a seven game winning streak to take us from 4-6 to 11-6 and ready to make our run in the playoffs. Thanks to the hard-nosed coaching of Jeff Brown and Kevin King we were ready to make our move. Our ace pitcher, Robb Munson, was ready for the challenge and threw most of our innings all year.

Munson had the hot hand all summer and heavy hitters Juan Marante, Ron Benedict and newcomer Erik Abrams had great years. I enjoyed my role behind the plate and tried to help stabilize the defense. But it really came down to just plan solid team defense and overall team hitting by everyone. That attitude helped our team earn a first round bye in playoffs.

Robb Munson shut everyone down in the playoffs pitching every inning. The bats were hot and we added great base running. The defense was lights out and everyone made contributions to our success with key hits in clutch situations. That’s what won us the title. We have a great hitting team and our bench went 4-4 in the title game with Mark Owen adding key base-clearing hits. Ron Benedict, Tony Ablett, Eric Abrams and Kevin King were outstanding at the plate. Bobby Pone and Brett Young in the infield knocked down everything while the outfield of Ablett, Erik Abrams and Alex Perez were lights out.

The box score from the game is shown below: