Clay graduate Drew Kuns picked a good baseball team to play for during his summer break.

Rather, the Ohio Monarchs were lucky that Kuns played for their Gold team this summer.

Kuns batted .509 overall and had four hits and four RBI in the championship game last Sunday to help the Gold win its second NABF College World Series title in three years.

This summer marked Kuns' first season with the Monarchs, who beat the Alton Indians 13-5 for the NABF championship at Ned Skeldon Stadium. Kuns, a first baseman, was named the Series MVP.

“It's sweet,” said Kuns, a sophomore at Bowling Green State University. “It felt good just to go out there and win in my first year. There were like three other new kids on the team. They added us and we went out there and won a championship. We had a great team.”

The Monarchs finished with a 41-9 record this season. They also defended their Tri-State League title and won the Toledo Amateur Baseball Federation title for the third straight year.

“When you have a group of kids like this who come from winning programs and who have great high school coaches, it makes it easy for me,” Gold manager Ed Mouch said. “The group in general, it's just a loose group and they have fun. They knew we had the capability of scoring runs.”

Left fielder Casey Winckowski, a Clay grad who has played for the Monarchs for three years, batted .500 and was named to the all-tournament team along with Kuns and teammate Ricky Lizcano from Start. Winckowski is a junior at Erskine College in South Carolina.

“If you really had to pick a leader off this team, Casey was the leader,” Mouch said. “Anytime he has an opportunity to come up with a big hit, nine times out of 10 he's going to do it.”

The Gold, playing in Pool B, committed four errors in an 8-5 loss to Tri-State League rival Shannon Fence in the first game of the World Series. The Monarchs, Winckowski said, were in a “bad mood” after that loss.

“We talked before the Series and we were looking to sweep through everything,” he said. “We didn't see a challenge. We came out the first couple games and played the worst baseball we've played all summer. We beat Shannon Fence three out of four games this summer...”

The Monarchs bounced back to beat the New York-based Mill Basin Mariners 7-4 and then erased a 9-2 deficit to defeat the Illinois Jayhawks 12-10 in pool play to advance to the quarterfinals.

“After we came back in the third game, we just went on a tear,” Winckowski said. “There isn't a team anyone put together that could have beaten us.”

The Monarchs crushed the Kings Bridge (N.Y.) Knights 17-7 in the quarterfinal round and then needed 10 innings to beat the Crystal Lake (N.Y.) Cardinals 10-9 in the semifinals.

Ben Kauder, a native of Curtice who played at St. John's Jesuit, doubled and scored what proved to be the winning run in the top of the 10th inning in the win over Crystal Lake. He also scored a run in the eighth inning.

Kuns had a huge day at the plate in the championship game against the Alton Indians, a team from the St. Louis area. He had an RBI single to break a 3-3 tie in the bottom of the second inning and a two-run homer in the fifth. He also had an RBI single in the eighth.

“I was so excited going into that game,” Kuns said. “We were so excited to be there and we went in there knowing the other team had no pitchers left. We knew we had a great chance to win it all. There was some pretty good talent in this tournament. Our team chemistry was so good, we all just went out there and just played.”

Winckowski, who had an RBI triple in the championship game, was one of 10 returning players who helped the Monarchs win the World Series title two years ago.

“This one was really good, just because we really came together as a team,” he said. “They're both World Series championships and they feel just about the same — we won everything. I've been on the team for a while and I knew I had to step up. Everyone played a huge part to lead us to this win.”

Despite the fact that he will be eligible to play for the Monarchs again next summer, Winckowski said he'll probably opt to do something else.

“Right now, I think it’s right to leave on a College World Series win,” he said. “There isn't any better way to go out.”

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