Zanesville Junior Pioneers left-handed pitcher Dyson Bowman was named the Most Valuable Player of the 72nd annual AAABA Tournament.
Bowman pitched 15 2/3 innings on a Zanesville team that won the first AAABA Tournament title in a franchise history dating to 1947.
The senior at Boston College threw the final 3 2/3 innings in Zanesville’s 8-2 win over Paul Carpenter Capital Advisors in the title game at Point Stadium as an estimated 4,000 fans watched.
He had a 1-1 record and one save. Bowman posted a 2.87 earned run average. He allowed 18 hits while striking out five and walking five for the tournament champions.
- Buffalo Leib’s Alex Whipple was the tournament batting champion with a .545 average. Whipple had six hits in 11 at-bats during three games for 2-1 Leib’s.
- The Cleveland Blaze’s Luke Caple was the tournament RBI leader with eight. Caple had a home run and one double among his seven hits. He scored two runs.
- Buffalo Leib’s won the Sportsmanship Award. Manager Ron Leib’s team went 2-1 in the tournament but did not advance out of pool play due to a tiebreaker.
- Paul Carpenter’s Capital Advisors’ Patrick Ferguson had a game-winning hit, scored a game-winning run and had a key hit for two insurance runs in three of the Johnstown-2 team’s wins to earn The Tribune-Democrat local representative MVP Award. Ferguson had seven RBIs, including the historic three-run homer to right field that traveled out of Point Stadium and into the Stonycreek River, leading to a 7-6 semifinal win over Cleveland.