Waterdown Hammer wins ToC berth at McNab

Waterdown Hammer (ISC II #10) won the Tournament of Champions berth in McNab this weekend, winning the 8 team qualifier with four straight wins, three by the arm of veteran Wayne Wells.

Final order of finish:
Waterdown Hammer 4-0
Carp I4C Victory 3-2
Fitzroy Harbour WC Electric 3-2
North York Knights 2-2
Quyon COMBAT Flyers 1-2
Greely DNTW Eagles 1-2
Donnaconna Blue Sox 0-2
Fitzroy/McNab Badham Carpentry 0-2

Waterdown Hammer 11
Fitzroy/McNab Badham Carpentry 2
WP: Rod Fevreau
LP: Andrew Jahn

Fitzroy Harbour WC Electric 2
North York Knights 0
WP: Brad Porter
LP: Tracy Woolridge

Carp I4C Victory 6
Greely DNTW Eagles 0
WP: Trevor Wood
LP: Ray Shanoush

Quyon Flyers 2
Donnaconna Blue Sox 1
WP: Matt Greer
LP: Francis Leclair

North York 8
Fitzroy/McNab 1
WP: Kyle Linton
LP: Shawn "Cranko" Ryan

Greely 8
Donnaconna 2
WP: Shannon Borho
LP: Francis Leclair

Waterdown 10
Fitzroy Harbour 0
WP: Wayne Wells
LP: Bud Hanlon

Carp 4
Quyon 3 (9 innings)
WP: Neil Cooke
LP: Matt Greer

Fitzroy Harbour 6
Greely 1
WP: Brad Porter
LP: Shannon Borho

North York 6
Quyon 0
WP: Tracy Woolridge
LP: Darren Featherstone

Fitzroy Harbour 2
North York 1
WP: Brad Porter
LP: Tracy Woolridge

Waterdown 6
Carp 1
WP: Wayne Wells
LP: Bryan Brooks

Carp 12
Fitzroy Harbour 0
WP: Trevor Wood
LP: Brad Porter

Waterdown 4
Carp 3
WP: Wayne Wells
LP: Jordan MacDonald

A few random thoughts on the weekend:

- Good job again by Harold McMillan and his volunteers from McNab/Braeside Minor Ball. Well run event. Beer for $3 (no inflation up in McNab/Braeside Twp. I guess!) is a good price.

- Despite that JJ warned for potential showers, the weather was beautiful and sunny, but not too hot for ball.

- The infields were a little hard, making some interesting bounces (just ask Andrew Bruce of the Eagles and his cheekbone), but generally the fields were in good shape. Nice touches by the hardworking rec director Ryan "Meat" Marcellus of the Township on little things, like getting the bathrooms painted before the tourney.

- Waterdown definitely deserved to win the tourney. Their only close game was the final, in which Carp got behind 4-1 and came back within one but couldn't close the deal.

- I4C Victory already had a berth from Oswego and were only playing for the 'travel money', but they did well, with their only losses coming to Waterdown. Several new faces on the Carp team with a contingent of players from Napanee in the starting line-up.

- When West Carleton Electric played well, they looked good in their three wins, two over North York and one over Greely. However, when they played bad, they played REAL bad with several errors in losses to the top two teams but a combined 22-0 score.

- North York Knights had a very small bench considering they came up from Toronto with only 11 guys, one of whom had to leave on Sunday. A decent team that might have been missing a couple of key players to make a better run at it.

- Quyon won a close first one over Donnaconna then lost a nine-inning squeaker against I4C. Carp had the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth with none out and the Flyers got out of it, only to lose in the ninth. Matt Greer showed a lot of jam gutting it out over 16 innings in a row. Quyon seemed to be out of gas in their third game when they lost to North York.

- Greely picked up a big win over Donnaconna, but couldn't get things rolling against Carp or Fitzroy.

- Donnaconna Blue Sox had to be the biggest surprise of the tournament. After good showings at the 2007 qualifier in Kingston and the Home League tourney in McNab last season, they were ranked #2 coming in, but went "0-2 BBQ".

- The young lads of Fitzroy/McNab keep getting better. It's good to see them stepping up to play against this type of competition. Their second game was 2-1 until the sixth - the 8-1 final isn't really reflective of their decent performance.

- It was good to see all teams (with one possible exception) patronizing the beer garden. Both finalists dropped in afterward for a few - good show by Waterdown since they are facing a long drive home. Some of the Hammer guys can be pretty grumpy on the field, but give them credit for representing in the beer garden.