By: Ben Prantl
The two-time reigning-champion Bees are two wins away from a three peat as they face Prestige World Wide in the 2024 WILL Championship Series. The series, which is a rematch of the 2022 WILL finals, will be a best of three and will be played Thursday (July 11) with Game 1 beginning at 7:35 pm.
The series will be LIVE on the WILL YouTube page ... Fully produced replays, will be released next week (Game 1 - Monday, Game 2 - Wednesday, Game 3 - Friday if necessary)
The Bees
The Bees earned the third seed in the WILL Playoffs, going 8-4. The Bees started the season 0-2 before catching fire midseason. The Bees cruised through the WILL Playoffs, defeating the top-seed Splunkers to enter the Championship Series with a 3-0 mark in the postseason.
The Bees boast the best offense in the WILL, leading the league in batting average, slugging, on-base percentage and OPS. Rob Licht is third in the WILL in both batting average and OPS. Licht is one of three Bees to boast a batting average over .475, alongside Steven Keelon (.544) and Jordan Castelli (.484).
The Bees’ 64 home runs are third-best in the WILL. The Bees are also second-best in the league in ERA and WHIP. Keelon’s 4.22 ERA and 1.22 WHIP are each the second best in the WILL, making him one of the league’s best two-way players.
Prestige World Wide
Prestige World Wide, who is playing in the championship for the second time in their three-year franchise, shocked the WILL making the championship series from the play-in bracket of the WILL Playoffs. Prestige finished with a 5-7 record in the regular season, before beating the Lumberjax to earn the No. 8 seed in the playoffs. Prestige beat the Chefs, Oakdale and the Ball Busters to meet the top-seed Splunkers in the semifinals, a game they won 3-1 thanks to Will Taczak’s two home runs and five innings of one-run ball.
Tyson Mead is fifth in the WILL in batting average and second in OPS (2.010). Taczak is tied for the league lead with 27 home runs - a title he shares with Jordan Castelli of the Bees - and is tied for seventh in the WILL with a batting average of .520. Taczak, another of the league’s premier two-way players, is fifth in ERA and tied for third in WHIP.
HEAD-TO-HEAD MATCHUP
The Bees are 2-0 this season against PWW, winning 10-6 in the regular season and 3-2 in extra innings during Monday night's playoffs.
A five-run top of the fifth pushed the Bees past PWW in the regular season, as Castelli (2) and Licht (3) combined for five home runs ... Will Taczak homered three times in his final three at bats in the PWW losing effort.
Facing their final out in the fifth and sixth innings, Rob Licht homered to tie the playoff contest against PWW on Monday night in a battle of 1-0 squads ... Keelon, who pitched a complete game, walked it off in the sixth with a homer to left field.
Looking back to the 2022 championship, the Bees (then Sea Turtles) swept PWW in two games ... PWW, who was in their rookie season, held an early lead in the opening game, before the Sea Turtles sent it to extras and Jordan Castelli hit a walk-off home run (7-4 final) ... In game two, the Sea Turtles led from start to finish, clinching the 2022 title with a 9-4 triumph.
CHAMPIONSHIP NOTES
Bees are looking to become just the second team ever to three-peat as WILL champions ... Booze on First (2016, '17, '18) was the last to do it ... Castelli was a member of the 2017 and '18 teams.
Castelli will look to pass Jacob Davey for most league championships with his fifth on the horizon.
This is the 6th championship appearance for Rob Licht, the most of any player in WILL history.
In the Yellow Bat era (since 2021), the WILL has had three consecutive two-game sweeps in the championship ... Boneyard Wiffle over Roman Noodles (2021), Sea Turtles over Prestige World Wide (2022), Buddies over Splunkers (2023)
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