Something funny happened to Meridian on its way to a historic undefeated regular season in the Butler County American Legion Baseball League.

It rained.

Play was stopped in the middle of the fourth inning Tuesday night at Pullman Park with East Butler leading Meridian, 2-1. The mound and plate area became too muddy for play to resume.

The game was canceled and Meridian (17-0) became the first BCAL team to complete a perfect regular season in years — if not ever.

"It's a great accomplishment and a great feeling to be 17-0. Hopefully, we'll ride that momentum into the playoffs," Meridian manager Butch Master said. "We want to position ourselves to win the tournament and avoid the best-of-three playoff to determine who's going to the state tournament.

"Our pitching isn't real deep and we want to conserve as much of it as we can."

Meridian clinched the regular-season title with a 12-2 win over Karns City Monday night. Should it win the league's double-elimination tournament as well, Meridian will advance to the state tournament.

If another team wins the BCAL tournament, that team will face Meridian in a best-of-three series to determine who plays on.

"There's five teams that could win that (BCAL) tournament," East Butler manager Carl Hays said. "There's a lot of baseball to be played yet."

The East Butler-Meridian game had been rescheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday at Pullman Park, but cannot be played then because the Prospect League's Butler BlueSox have a game scheduled that night.

East Butler (14-2) is scheduled to play Karns City tonight.

The first 3½ innings of Tuesday's game don't count as an official game. The entire contest had to be replayed for it to count in the standings.

East Butler had a 10-0 lead on Karns City and Greg Hays was working on a no-hitter when rain ended play after four innings earlier this season. The entire game was replayed, and East Butler won.

"I don't see how we can change the league rules in midstream. We pretty much have to start over," Carl Hays said.

Master agreed.

"I'd love to play out this 2-1 game and see where it goes," he said. "But it wouldn't be right. That's not the rules."

Greg Hays threw 45 pitches through three innings Tuesday. Master started Josh Miller on the mound and pulled him after he allowed three straight hits — including a run-scoring triple by Cody Herald — in the second. Cody Pilarcik replaced Miller.

Meridian's top three pitchers are Zach Vasey, Caleb Trombatt and Bobby Swartwout.

"None of them (would have) thrown Thursday," Master said.

The BCAL decided to make Thursday the final available day for teams to play any regular-season games.

"We've got 17 games in and East Butler will, too, once they play Wednesday," Master said. "I think we're the only teams to play as many as 17 games this year. There's been a lot of rainouts."

• Christos Klutinoty had a double, single and four RBI to lead Meridian to the 12-2 victory over Karns City Monday.

Miller contributed a single and two doubles to Meridian's 15-hit attack. Trombatt and Kenny Dunmyre each had two singles and two RBI, while Cory Achezinski had two singles and one RBI.

Josh Stimac had two singles for Karns City.

Vasey was the winning pitcher for Meridian, tossing a four-hitter.

• The BCAL playoff meeting will be Thursday. The league's tournament is expected to begin Sunday or Monday night.