Boys of Summer; Palmer Little League caps regular season

PALMER — In a rematch of the season’s opening game between No Jo’s and MEA in Palmer Little League’s majors division, MEA came out on top 6-2 on Friday night at the Sherrod Ballfields to win the regular season championship. Tournament play will begin this weekend to determine an overall league champion.

“It means a lot, it really does. We’ve been looking forward to this game since game one because we played these guys the first game of the season and I was just really excited to play them again,” said 12-year-old Reed Craner.

Craner’s late game heroics helped MEA avenge their 3-0 loss to No Jo’s earlier this season. Palmer Little League began play on June 8.

“We really talked to a lot of the parents about concerns and there was a lot of questions and had some tough conversations,” said head coach Jeremy Craner. “We’ve had low numbers in the Valley so we still felt comfortable that we could keep this going. In my opinion the benefits outweigh the negatives. These boys just love to play baseball. All these kids needed this at this time, I really feel strongly about that.”

MEA held a 3-2 lead into the fifth inning when Craner hit a run-scoring triple to help seal the win on a rainy evening.

“I was just really glad I could get a hit,” said Craner.

Despite the delayed start to the season, players were able to register and begin playing with social distancing and safety requirements for participants. No All-Star tournaments will be held between teams from around the state and each team’s players and coaches sanitized their hands before and after each game.

“I really just think it means everything in this time where we can come out and have some sort of normalcy, some sort of distraction from what’s going on in the world and I’m just happy we’re able to do it and the kids, as you can tell these kids like to play and they get a lot out of it and it’s just been a lot of fun,” said Jeremy Craner.