Meyer excels at Cooperstown

PHOTO COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

Batesville Middle School sstudent Carson Meyer hurls a pitch in historic Cooperstown, NY this past week. Meyer and the Cincinnati Flames placed third out of 80 teams in the national tournament.

Carson Meyer is a little less than a month away from starting seventh grade at Batesville Middle School. Should a teacher ask him how his summer was, it’s safe to say he’ll have quite the story to tell about how he spent the “dog days” of the season.

After all, he recently wrapped up playing baseball at the mecca of the sport. With Cooperstown, New York serving as the backdrop of a week long national youth tournament, Meyer and his Cincinnati Flames team enjoyed the sights and sounds provided by the National Baseball Hall of Fame while succeeding on the diamond as the team placed third at the American Youth Baseball Hall of Fame Invitational.

The Flames are primarily made up of youth from the west side of Cincinnati while also featuring Meyer out of Batesville. Also of area interest on the roster are Cobi Sanchez and Hayden Bear, both student-athletes out of East Central. The team is coached by Luis Sanchez and used the tournament on the east coast as a finale to its summer season.
Cooperstown Dreams Park has been a venue played by several of our area youth baseball players since its inception in 1996. The park hosts 16 national tournaments throughout the entire summer alongside various skills competitions and Cincinnati certainly staked its claim last week as one of the best teams to have appeared in 2022.

Cincinnati started the tournament by reeling off three-straight wins in pool play, defeating the Chicago Warriors 16-0, Maryland’s Sykesville Cyclones 20-15 and Colorado’s Cherry Creek Bruins 15-2. The Flames dropped their final two contests to teams out of Louisiana and Florida but bracket play that followed allowed for a big time reset inside an 80-team bracket.

The Flames got hot and in a hurry, beating the South Oakland A’s 12-7 and the API Academy Blue out of Maryland 8-6 in round two to advance to the Sweet 16 of the tournament. Cincinnati blasted New Jersey’s Mustangs Gold 16-2 and survived Beaver Valley Black out of Pennsylvania 17-11 to punch its ticket to the Final Four. As games piled up, eventually Cincinnati’s flame extinguished with fatigue starting to settle in. The team’s run ended in the semifinals, falling 23-11 to Georgia’s Team USA Scouts.

A 7-3 record marked Cincinnati’s run in the tournament. The team scored a total of 131 runs for the week on 133 hits, 44 of which were home runs. Those 10 games also saw the Flames combine for a team batting average of .459. Cincinnati finished its summer season with a 41-20 overall record.

Of course Meyer was a big part of the success through 61 games and inside the 10 games at Cooperstown, putting up an impressive stat line that pairs well with the memories made with his teammates. In last week’s tournament, Meyer went 14-for-25 at the plate as his batting average stood at .560 for the tournament and seven of the 14 hits sailed over the fence. He drove in a total of 19 runs.

Meyer also served as one of the team’s key pitchers in the tournament and totaled eight innings on the mound. The young lefthander recorded three saves in his first three appearances and then delivered a quality start in the Elite Eight against Beaver Valley, allowing four runs on seven hits through four frames of work. In the eight innings pitched, Meyer’s totals included nine hits allowed to 36 batters with 15 strikeouts against a lone walk.

Both baseball and basketball have been strong suits for Meyer who is the son of Doug and Courtney (Stenger) Meyer and grandson of Bob and Roxanne Meyer and Pete and Carla Stenger. Carson’s sister, Josie, is a standout golfer at Batesville High School and was a member of last year’s golf team that advanced to the state finals.