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SOFTBALL: 2025 Postseason Awards
BY MATT AMSDEN
Here’s an expanded menu of postseason awards for Lake Erie Islands Softball. While Kelleys repeated its lose-Game-#1-and-win-Games-#2-and-3 strategy to repeat as league champions in 2025, they were not alone in cracking the postseason awards. Here goes:
2025 Defensive Player of the Year: Nobody covers more ground in the outfield than Blue Marlin’s DEVON DOHANOS. Ranging from shallow left-center field to deep right-center field, the youngest Dohanos brother may have recorded more put-outs than anyone in the league. And then there’s his strong, accurate arm. Add all this stuff together, and you have the #1 defender in a very talented league.
Honorable Mention: OF Anderson Martin (Middle Bass) and 3B Anna Sedlock (Middle Bass).
2025 Offensive Player of the Year: The shortstop play of JAC ALEXANDER (Blue Marlin) is rock solid, but his long-ball potential lifted the stacked middle of Blue Marlin’s batting lineup all season. It’s not surprising that he was a successful QB for Oak Harbor High School: leadership takes many forms, and may be most recognizable in athletics and politics. This dude’s a leader on and off the field; ask any of his teammates.
Honorable Mention: Devon Dohanos (Blue Marlin)
2025 Most Valuable Player: The ability to excel in the biggest moments often defines an MVP. DALTON HAYES (Kelleys) found his Big Moment in Game #2 of the championship series. His walk-off homer in extra innings turned the tide of the finals and propelled Kelleys to its second straight championship and eighth in the last 12 years. Hayes generates more bat speed than anyone in the league. Of course, this is a non-scientific statement: we don’t have all the high-tech tools that MLB possesses to measure such things. But consider this: HAYES may not inhabit an MLB-sized body, but man, can he swing it! Much like Mookie Betts (Dodgers All-Star), Hayes is a big talent in a slightly more compact package. And maybe no one combines offensive and defensive abilities like Hayes.
2025 Fireman of the Year: This award recognizes relief pitchers, and this year’s winner, almost by default, is EDDIE SHELLER (Middle Bass). If you know anyone who knows Eddie and dislikes him, steer clear of that person. Eddie, in a word, is zany, and is perhaps the most likable guy on all of Middle Bass (or Northern Ohio, even). He also owns the funkiest pitching delivery around: sort of a lobbing-a-grenade-into-a-foxhole kinda thing. It confounds batters. Eddie says he learned it on YouTube. As a home plate umpire, I’ve never seen anything like it (and I grew up in the era of Kent Tekulve). Eddie, you’re alright, kid.
Honorable Mention: GRANT MADIGAN (House). Whether a starter or reliever, Madigan is as unassuming a pitcher as the Indians’ former reliever Paul Assenmacher (who was sort of a Deputy Dog-like character in cleats). Madigan enters a game, throws strikes, has a few laughs, and leaves (often with a win).
2025 Manager of the Year: When Mike Hargrove won the Sporting News Manager of the Year in 1994 for the Cleveland Indians, he did it by managing 25 complex, diverse personalities in his dugout and leading the Indians out of obscurity and into the World Series the following year. STEVE ALEXANDER (Blue Marlin) repeated this feat on a smaller scale, managing a cast of characters that included an MMA fighter, a former high school star quarterback, a former high school star wide receiver, a pair of brothers who are legacy stars (their father was a professional softball national and world champion), and a band of other swirling personalities. Like the Indians 30 years before them, Blue Marlin fell in the championship series, but thanks to their skipper, they played a whale of a season.
Honorable Mention: ANDY FEDERLE (Kelleys). He reminds me of Earl Weaver, the venerable Baltimore Orioles manager, only taller. If Andy runs Kelleys Island, as its Village Administrator, like he runs his ballclub, everyone at Kelleys better toe the line.
2025 Support Staff of the Year: JODY AMSDEN is the official scorer for all games at Mother of Sorrows Field. She collects starting lineups pre-game and verifies the run totals in each half-inning, all while serving as an indispensable sounding board for the umpiring staff on-field. Her in-game partner, SCOTT McGOOKEY, assists in all things that happen on-field for the umpiring crew. And what is journalism without photos? SUSAN BYRNES, the island’s modest lensmaster, has an innate sense of where to position herself to get the best action shots (you can say the same for Neil Leifer, perhaps Sports Illustrated’s greatest photographer). Lastly, DINO USZAK runs the Mother of Sorrows scoreboard like no one else. He’s the best in the biz.
2025 Player Emeritus Award: “There comes a time when we’re told we can no longer play this game. For some, it’s at age 18. For others, it’s at 40. But we’re all told.” That’s a line from Moneyball, and it fits BILLY MARKET. The Big Boss at Miller Boat Line has played Lake Erie Island Softball for 40 years, and in 2025, he pitched 5 innings and slapped singles to right field for Boardwalk despite having passed the age 60 barrier. God bless you, Billy.
2025 “Heavenly Dirt” Award: Mother of Sorrows Field lies under the fastidious care of the Murphy family. Want a sweaty workout? Join JOHN, PADDY and MICHAEL MURPHY at 3pm on a 90-degree game day as they prepare the infield, dragging, lining, and filling in the batter’s boxes for a 6:15pm start. The field not only looks perfect when they’re done, it PLAYS perfect at game time. Thanks, boys! You’re the best!
P.S. Following a 13-day mini-drought, the Murphys consulted with BILLY MARKET, who encouraged the PIB Volunteer Fire Department to gush 500+ gallons of water onto the field in preparation for Game #3 of the championship series on Aug. 11th. Sounds like a lot of water? Mother of Sorrows Field lapped it up, and the field was exquisite for the championship final.
2025 Fan of the Year Award: If it’s Sunday, Monday or Wednesday evening in summer, you’ll find DONNA MARTENS comfortably seated in her golf cart directly behind home plate, surrounded by friends. Donna is an unabashed fan of Boardwalk, and as a result, she’s had a LOT to cheer about over the years. Now I’m forced to miss her for 10 months!
This piece of Put-in-Bay journalism has been provided to putinbaylodging.com courtesy of the Put-in-Bay Gazette, Put-in-Bay’s only local newspaper. Visit their website putinbay.news for more information and to subscribe!
