MANISTEE – It was another banner season for the Manistee Saints adult amateur baseball team, which won both the Gratiot County Baseball League regular season title, their second straight, and the post-season tournament championship.

Two players who played instrumental roles in the team’s success received special awards recently.

Regular shortstop Xavier Allen put up some impressive offensive numbers while also playing sparkling defense, for which he was honored as the Saints’ Player of the Year.

While the defense was stout throughout the season, committing more than one or two errors in game only rarely, the Saints’ pitching was also outstanding.

One of the more versatile performers was Dylan Bates, who was used in long and sort relief, and was the team’s closer on several occasions and was named Pitcher of the Year.

“Every time that Dylan went out there on the mound, we were pretty much guaranteed that he would either shut them down, or stop their momentum,” player/manager Lucas Richardson said. “He did a good job of hitting the spots, and getting ground balls.

“He threw a lot of strikes. He didn’t walk a whole lot of guys, and had a pretty low ERA (earned run average).

“We could always count on him, and was kind of our modified closer, I would call him. He was our inning burner. He was really good at coming into games early if we needed him to.”

Bates made 11 appearances and worked 31 2/3 innings with a 4-0 record, striking out 27 and posting a snappy 1.55 ERA.

Richardson said that what makes Bates so effective is that he has a lot of movement on his fastball, and his mixes in a change up.

Allen played in 18 games this season, and led the team with four home runs, 20 runs batted in and a robust .441 batting average.

“I think he started off a little slow. I didn’t really know what to expect from him because he only played a couple games for us last year,” Richardson said.

“Then I really saw him kind of get comfortable with the team, and he had a couple weekends there where he was getting five, six, seven hits in a doubleheader.

“Actually, I was trying to put him in the three spot a lot of times because he was probably our best hitter.”

But, every time Ricardson tried to swap Allen with him in the lineup, he wouldn’t feed off the energy as well … so he shelved the idea for good.

A good hitter, Allen also shined on defense.

“He was so consistent in the field, regardless of his offensive performance,” Richardson added. “Just an all around, really good baseball player.

“Probably one of the best shortstops I’ve ever played with, and he’s only 20 years old. He’s only going to get better.”