I4C Victory at the Elkland Labour Day tourney
from Eric Rosenquist
The Carp I4C Victory fastball team attended the Elkland Pennsylvania Labour Day tournament for the 6th straight year in 2010. The boys were hoping to improve upon their fourth-place finishes in the previous two years, but like past years, the concern going into the tournament was whether the team had enough pitching to survive if they dropped into the loser bracket of the double-elimination tourney and had to play a number of back-to-back games. With most of the top Canadian pitchers in PEI at the senior men's championship and consequently unavailable, the Victory turned to 19 year old Caleb Keeshig from the Owen Sound area to complement I4C Victory stalwart Neil Cooke. Caleb was an unknown quantity to the Victory but came highly recommended by Owen Sound junior coach Lee Jacques.
Game #1
The Victory's first game was Saturday at noon, and it was not an easy one - going against the hometown Elkland team with senior pitcher Paul Algar on the mound. Neil Cooke countered for I4C, and the game was a harbinger of things to come for the Victory - low scoring with great pitching, solid defence, and opportunistic offence. The only run of the game came in the top of the 3rd when Victory catcher Al Read hit a double to left field and was able to score when the throw from the outfield to second skipped into shallow right field. Algar permitted only two other base-runners in the game and struck out 10, while Cooke was equally impressive, striking out 14 of the 25 batters he faced.Final score 1-0 Victory.
Game #2
The game #1 win meant playing at 8PM on Saturday against Keating's Fitness who had beaten the Kars Aces earlier in the day. Dave Stokes toed the rubber for Keating's while Caleb Keeshig got his first start of the tournament for I4C Victory. The Victory hitters got off to a quick start in this game, cashing in two runs in the top of the 1st courtesy of hits by Al Read, Kevin McGuire, and Cory Morrison. From the second inning on however, Stokes limited the Victory to just four base runners, none of whom were able to score even with three stolen bases mixed in. Keating's also got off to a quick start in the game, with lead-off hitter Dan Loney ripping the first pitch from Keeshig to deep left for a triple. Keeshig however was able to settle in - retiring the side with a strike-out, walk, and two more strike-outs to leave Loney stranded at third.
The turning point of the game came in the bottom of the third inning when Keating's first hitter reached on a walk, stole second, and then appeared to have scored on a one-out flare to shallow left to reduce the Carp lead to one run. It turned out however that the runner bumped into Carp short-stop Kevin McGuire as he was running back to play the ball, and after an umpire's conference, the runner was called out for interference. After that play, Keeshig and Carp catcher Terry Redden got into a groove and scattered two hits and two walks over the final four innings. Final score 2-0 Victory.
Game #3
Winning their first two games earned the Victory a showdown Sunday at noon with the top-ranked Shaggy Dog team out of Erie, Pennsylvania. With New Zealander Jeremy Manley on the mound and some former and current USA national team members such as Frank DeGroat and Frankie Perez on the squad, Shaggy Dog were the clear tournament favourites.
Neil Cooke got the start for Carp and kept the Shaggy hitters in check until the bottom of the fourth inning. A single to the lead-off hitter was followed by a strike-out of DeGroat, but the next batter - Perez - hit a change-up over the left-field fence to give Shaggy a 2-0 lead. Cooke closed out the inning giving up another single and then getting out of the jam by inducing a textbook 6-4-3 double-play. Fearing that the experienced Shaggy hitters had picked something up from Carp catcher Al Read or Cooke, the Victory made a pitching change and brought Caleb Keeshig in to start the fifth inning. Keeshig did his job, striking out the side in the fifth and stranding a base hit in the sixth to keep the game within reach for Carp. RF Cory Morrison gave the Victory some hope when he hit a solo home run to start the seventh inning, but in the end it was not enough as the Carp hitters couldn't muster any further offence. Manley ended the game with 18Ks while Cooke/Keeshig countered with 8. Final score 2-1 Shaggy Dog.
Game #4
A quirk of the schedule meant that Carp didn't play their first loser-bracket game until 10AM on Monday morning. As is typical on the last day of a double-elimination tournament, teams in the loser-bracket keep playing back-to-back as long as they keep winning. First up for Carp was a rematch with the Elkland team, although this time both teams went to a pitcher the opposition hadn't already faced, with Elkland sending Ryan Cummings to the mound and Caleb Keeshig getting the ball for Carp.
The Victory hitters looked to be off to another quick start in this game as lead-off hitter Joel Langford singled, but then was doubled-off at 1st when a slap-bunt attempt by Kevin McGuire ended up being caught by the Elkland third baseman. Number three hitter Cory Morrison then stepped to the plate and hit a no-doubt solo home-run off Cummings to stake the Victory to an early 1-0 lead. That lead held up until the top of the sixth when Elkland tied the game with a solo home-run of their own. The Victory answered back promptly however, with McGuire reaching on a walk, stealing second, and then scoring as Carp hitters Tim Power, Al Read, and Matt McNish hit three straight singles. Tim Power came in to score the insurance run when Shawn Simzer followed those singles with a sacrifice fly to right field.
Keeshig then shut down the Elkland hitters in the top of the seventh to preserve the win, stranding a lead-off double and bloop single off the Elkland bats. Final score 3-1 Victory.
Game #5
The win over Elkland earned the Victory a noon game on the far diamond against Keating's Fitness. Neil Cooke got the start for I4C with veteran Mike Crawford countering for Keating's - both teams once again going with pitchers the opposition hadn't seen already that weekend. The Keating's hitters jumped on Cooke early, who later admitted he was having trouble hitting his spots, touching him up for 6 runs over the first two+ innings on the strength of 9 hits and 3 walks. With things looking glum for the Victory, Keeshig replaced Cooke on the mound after a lead-off double in the top of the third, hoping to keep the Keating hitters from adding to the lead long enough for the Carp hitters to figure out Crawford. Keeshig did just that, scattering three hits over the last five innings and surrendering no further runs.
In the bottom of the fourth, the Carp bats came to life, plating 4 runs on 6 hits and a walk to make the score 6-4 Keating's at the end of four. Keating's replaced Crawford with Joe Hineline to start the fifth, but the Carp hitters got to him as well, scoring a pair of runs on a trio of hard-hit balls by Cory Morrison, Al Read, and Matt McNish. In the bottom of the sixth, the Victory went ahead to stay, adding two more runs courtesy of a Kevin McGuire home run that scored McGuire and 2B Joel Langford. Final score 8-6 Victory.
Game #6
With no time to savour the emotional high of the come-from-behind win over Keating's, the Victory lugged their gear back to the main diamond to immediately play the loser of the noon undefeated game: the PA Power. Caleb Keeshig got the nod for Carp, going against Bill Hillhouse for the PA Power. Both pitchers kept the opposition hitters at bay through two innings, surrendering only one base runner apiece.
The third inning was the turning point of the game, and perhaps one of the longest innings ever played in Elkland. In the top of the third, the PA Power lead-off hitter smashed a home-run to centre field, but as he rounded the bases, Carp catcher Terry Redden picked up the Synergy-2 bat the hitter had used and handed it to the plate umpire, stating that it was an illegal bat since it wasn't ASA-2004 certified as required by the Elkland tournament rules. After a lengthy delay, where it was determined that the bat was not approved for use, and then another delay to ensure that the appropriate penalty was assessed, the batter was declared out and the game resumed with the score still 0-0.
Keeshig then induced fly balls from the next two hitters to retire the side and send the Victory hitters to the plate. The delay did not affect Carp's hitting however, as 1B John Peters led off the inning with a hit and was promptly moved to second on a sacrifice bunt from the Carp pitcher Keeshig. Joel Langford then followed with a shallow single that put Carp runners at the corners with just one out. Next up for Carp was shortstop Kevin McGuire, who hit a ground ball right at the first baseman and moved Langford to second but held Peters at third. Cory Morrison then hit a slow roller between home plate and the pitching rubber that pitcher Bill Hillhouse had trouble fielding, and by the time the dust had settled, both Peters and Langford had crossed the plate, giving Carp a 2-0 lead after three.
The Power responded right away with a pair of runs in the top of the fourth to make it 2-2. Caleb Keeshig, working his 16th inning over a 6 hour span, experienced a muscle cramp in his pitching forearm and had to come out of the game with nobody out and a runner on first. Neil Cooke subbed in for the catcher Terry Redden, and designated player Al Read went behind the plate to catch so that Keeshig remained in the batting order in the #9 slot. The first batter faced by Cooke/Read promptly hit a triple to cash the first Power run and put a runner on third, still with no outs. After a strike-out to Power DP Gregg Garrity, the runner on third was plated via a sac fly, tying the game.
The second contentious moment of the game came in the bottom of the fourth inning when Carp batter Todd Storms went to the plate to hit for Keeshig, whose forearm was not feeling any better and decided against trying to hit. Storms had been in the original line-up as the DP, but a last-second catching change by Carp coaches Eric Rosenquist and Trevor Wood had Al Read changed to the DP with Terry Redden inserted as the catcher for Keeshig. In their haste, Storms' name wasn't written on the list of available substitutes for the game when the line-up card was handed in, so when he stepped to the plate the PA Power challenged him as an illegal substitution and the umpires ruled him out. Carp argued that eligible substitute players can be added to a game roster at any time during the game, and pointed to Storms' crossed out name in the starting line-up to highlight his status as an eligible player, but the umpires stood by their ruling which they said was according to the "ISA" rule book. In hindsight and for what little it's worth, it would appear that Carp's interpretation was correct, as the Independent Softball Association rule book (http://www.isasoftball.com/files/2010RULEBOOKPDF.pdf) is aligned with most other associations and allows eligible subs to be added during the game.
Carp recovered quickly from the frustration of the fourth inning and broke the tie for good in the bottom of the fifth. Joel Langford started the inning with a single, was bunted to second by McGuire, moved to third on a deep fly ball off the bat of Cory Morrison, and then came home on an infield hit by Al Read.
The PA Power threatened to take over the game in the sixth as Cooke worked himself into and out of a bases-loaded jam, getting a much-needed strike out to end the inning and the threat. Cooke then followed that up with a 1-2-3 seventh inning to seal the win and send the Victory on to the finals. Final score 3-2 Victory.
Game #7 - Tournament Final
The final game against Shaggy Dog of Erie PA started shortly after the PA Power game; by then it was past 5PM and the final had been scheduled to start at 4PM. The Carp players got a brief rest during the pre-game ceremonies, which included player introductions, a touching poem about Durk Sherman (the tournament's namesake who passed away during the 2009 tournament) read by his daughter, and a pre-game anthem played by the local school band. Carp continued their Monday coin-toss luck and won home team for the game, sending Neil Cooke to the pitching rubber to face the experienced and well rested Shaggy Dog players. Shaggy Dog was only on their 4th game of the weekend compared to the 4th consecutive game of the day and 7th of the weekend for Carp.
Shaggy's lead-off hitter got them off to a quick start by hitting a single, advancing to second on a sac bunt, and then scoring all the way from second on a deep fly ball to centre field when the throw from the outfield came in just over the head of Carp SS Kevin McGuire. Cooke had better luck in the second, retiring the side in order on a pair of ground balls and a pop-up to second. In the third, Shaggy Dog had a string of singles that saw them add another run and still have the bases loaded with just one out. They looked to be set to take control of the game, but Cooke struck out the #4 hitter and then got the #5 hitter to pop-up to second and cap Shaggy's scoring for the game at two runs. Cooke was nearly perfect over the remaining four innings, allowing just two runners to reach base.
Jeremy Manley was equally impressive on the mound, allowing just three base runners over seven innings on a single, double, and walk. Unfortunately for Carp, those three runners were all in separate innings and ended up stranded on the bases. Manley finished the game with 18 strike outs on his way to earning the tournament's top pitcher award.
Carp's Caleb Keeshig was presented with the MVP award for his role in the Victory's run to the finals. Final score 2-0 Shaggy Dog.
The Carp I4C Victory fastball team attended the Elkland Pennsylvania Labour Day tournament for the 6th straight year in 2010. The boys were hoping to improve upon their fourth-place finishes in the previous two years, but like past years, the concern going into the tournament was whether the team had enough pitching to survive if they dropped into the loser bracket of the double-elimination tourney and had to play a number of back-to-back games. With most of the top Canadian pitchers in PEI at the senior men's championship and consequently unavailable, the Victory turned to 19 year old Caleb Keeshig from the Owen Sound area to complement I4C Victory stalwart Neil Cooke. Caleb was an unknown quantity to the Victory but came highly recommended by Owen Sound junior coach Lee Jacques.
Game #1
The Victory's first game was Saturday at noon, and it was not an easy one - going against the hometown Elkland team with senior pitcher Paul Algar on the mound. Neil Cooke countered for I4C, and the game was a harbinger of things to come for the Victory - low scoring with great pitching, solid defence, and opportunistic offence. The only run of the game came in the top of the 3rd when Victory catcher Al Read hit a double to left field and was able to score when the throw from the outfield to second skipped into shallow right field. Algar permitted only two other base-runners in the game and struck out 10, while Cooke was equally impressive, striking out 14 of the 25 batters he faced.Final score 1-0 Victory.
Game #2
The game #1 win meant playing at 8PM on Saturday against Keating's Fitness who had beaten the Kars Aces earlier in the day. Dave Stokes toed the rubber for Keating's while Caleb Keeshig got his first start of the tournament for I4C Victory. The Victory hitters got off to a quick start in this game, cashing in two runs in the top of the 1st courtesy of hits by Al Read, Kevin McGuire, and Cory Morrison. From the second inning on however, Stokes limited the Victory to just four base runners, none of whom were able to score even with three stolen bases mixed in. Keating's also got off to a quick start in the game, with lead-off hitter Dan Loney ripping the first pitch from Keeshig to deep left for a triple. Keeshig however was able to settle in - retiring the side with a strike-out, walk, and two more strike-outs to leave Loney stranded at third.
The turning point of the game came in the bottom of the third inning when Keating's first hitter reached on a walk, stole second, and then appeared to have scored on a one-out flare to shallow left to reduce the Carp lead to one run. It turned out however that the runner bumped into Carp short-stop Kevin McGuire as he was running back to play the ball, and after an umpire's conference, the runner was called out for interference. After that play, Keeshig and Carp catcher Terry Redden got into a groove and scattered two hits and two walks over the final four innings. Final score 2-0 Victory.
Game #3
Winning their first two games earned the Victory a showdown Sunday at noon with the top-ranked Shaggy Dog team out of Erie, Pennsylvania. With New Zealander Jeremy Manley on the mound and some former and current USA national team members such as Frank DeGroat and Frankie Perez on the squad, Shaggy Dog were the clear tournament favourites.
Neil Cooke got the start for Carp and kept the Shaggy hitters in check until the bottom of the fourth inning. A single to the lead-off hitter was followed by a strike-out of DeGroat, but the next batter - Perez - hit a change-up over the left-field fence to give Shaggy a 2-0 lead. Cooke closed out the inning giving up another single and then getting out of the jam by inducing a textbook 6-4-3 double-play. Fearing that the experienced Shaggy hitters had picked something up from Carp catcher Al Read or Cooke, the Victory made a pitching change and brought Caleb Keeshig in to start the fifth inning. Keeshig did his job, striking out the side in the fifth and stranding a base hit in the sixth to keep the game within reach for Carp. RF Cory Morrison gave the Victory some hope when he hit a solo home run to start the seventh inning, but in the end it was not enough as the Carp hitters couldn't muster any further offence. Manley ended the game with 18Ks while Cooke/Keeshig countered with 8. Final score 2-1 Shaggy Dog.
Game #4
A quirk of the schedule meant that Carp didn't play their first loser-bracket game until 10AM on Monday morning. As is typical on the last day of a double-elimination tournament, teams in the loser-bracket keep playing back-to-back as long as they keep winning. First up for Carp was a rematch with the Elkland team, although this time both teams went to a pitcher the opposition hadn't already faced, with Elkland sending Ryan Cummings to the mound and Caleb Keeshig getting the ball for Carp.
The Victory hitters looked to be off to another quick start in this game as lead-off hitter Joel Langford singled, but then was doubled-off at 1st when a slap-bunt attempt by Kevin McGuire ended up being caught by the Elkland third baseman. Number three hitter Cory Morrison then stepped to the plate and hit a no-doubt solo home-run off Cummings to stake the Victory to an early 1-0 lead. That lead held up until the top of the sixth when Elkland tied the game with a solo home-run of their own. The Victory answered back promptly however, with McGuire reaching on a walk, stealing second, and then scoring as Carp hitters Tim Power, Al Read, and Matt McNish hit three straight singles. Tim Power came in to score the insurance run when Shawn Simzer followed those singles with a sacrifice fly to right field.
Keeshig then shut down the Elkland hitters in the top of the seventh to preserve the win, stranding a lead-off double and bloop single off the Elkland bats. Final score 3-1 Victory.
Game #5
The win over Elkland earned the Victory a noon game on the far diamond against Keating's Fitness. Neil Cooke got the start for I4C with veteran Mike Crawford countering for Keating's - both teams once again going with pitchers the opposition hadn't seen already that weekend. The Keating's hitters jumped on Cooke early, who later admitted he was having trouble hitting his spots, touching him up for 6 runs over the first two+ innings on the strength of 9 hits and 3 walks. With things looking glum for the Victory, Keeshig replaced Cooke on the mound after a lead-off double in the top of the third, hoping to keep the Keating hitters from adding to the lead long enough for the Carp hitters to figure out Crawford. Keeshig did just that, scattering three hits over the last five innings and surrendering no further runs.
In the bottom of the fourth, the Carp bats came to life, plating 4 runs on 6 hits and a walk to make the score 6-4 Keating's at the end of four. Keating's replaced Crawford with Joe Hineline to start the fifth, but the Carp hitters got to him as well, scoring a pair of runs on a trio of hard-hit balls by Cory Morrison, Al Read, and Matt McNish. In the bottom of the sixth, the Victory went ahead to stay, adding two more runs courtesy of a Kevin McGuire home run that scored McGuire and 2B Joel Langford. Final score 8-6 Victory.
Game #6
With no time to savour the emotional high of the come-from-behind win over Keating's, the Victory lugged their gear back to the main diamond to immediately play the loser of the noon undefeated game: the PA Power. Caleb Keeshig got the nod for Carp, going against Bill Hillhouse for the PA Power. Both pitchers kept the opposition hitters at bay through two innings, surrendering only one base runner apiece.
The third inning was the turning point of the game, and perhaps one of the longest innings ever played in Elkland. In the top of the third, the PA Power lead-off hitter smashed a home-run to centre field, but as he rounded the bases, Carp catcher Terry Redden picked up the Synergy-2 bat the hitter had used and handed it to the plate umpire, stating that it was an illegal bat since it wasn't ASA-2004 certified as required by the Elkland tournament rules. After a lengthy delay, where it was determined that the bat was not approved for use, and then another delay to ensure that the appropriate penalty was assessed, the batter was declared out and the game resumed with the score still 0-0.
Keeshig then induced fly balls from the next two hitters to retire the side and send the Victory hitters to the plate. The delay did not affect Carp's hitting however, as 1B John Peters led off the inning with a hit and was promptly moved to second on a sacrifice bunt from the Carp pitcher Keeshig. Joel Langford then followed with a shallow single that put Carp runners at the corners with just one out. Next up for Carp was shortstop Kevin McGuire, who hit a ground ball right at the first baseman and moved Langford to second but held Peters at third. Cory Morrison then hit a slow roller between home plate and the pitching rubber that pitcher Bill Hillhouse had trouble fielding, and by the time the dust had settled, both Peters and Langford had crossed the plate, giving Carp a 2-0 lead after three.
The Power responded right away with a pair of runs in the top of the fourth to make it 2-2. Caleb Keeshig, working his 16th inning over a 6 hour span, experienced a muscle cramp in his pitching forearm and had to come out of the game with nobody out and a runner on first. Neil Cooke subbed in for the catcher Terry Redden, and designated player Al Read went behind the plate to catch so that Keeshig remained in the batting order in the #9 slot. The first batter faced by Cooke/Read promptly hit a triple to cash the first Power run and put a runner on third, still with no outs. After a strike-out to Power DP Gregg Garrity, the runner on third was plated via a sac fly, tying the game.
The second contentious moment of the game came in the bottom of the fourth inning when Carp batter Todd Storms went to the plate to hit for Keeshig, whose forearm was not feeling any better and decided against trying to hit. Storms had been in the original line-up as the DP, but a last-second catching change by Carp coaches Eric Rosenquist and Trevor Wood had Al Read changed to the DP with Terry Redden inserted as the catcher for Keeshig. In their haste, Storms' name wasn't written on the list of available substitutes for the game when the line-up card was handed in, so when he stepped to the plate the PA Power challenged him as an illegal substitution and the umpires ruled him out. Carp argued that eligible substitute players can be added to a game roster at any time during the game, and pointed to Storms' crossed out name in the starting line-up to highlight his status as an eligible player, but the umpires stood by their ruling which they said was according to the "ISA" rule book. In hindsight and for what little it's worth, it would appear that Carp's interpretation was correct, as the Independent Softball Association rule book (http://www.isasoftball.com/files/2010RULEBOOKPDF.pdf) is aligned with most other associations and allows eligible subs to be added during the game.
Carp recovered quickly from the frustration of the fourth inning and broke the tie for good in the bottom of the fifth. Joel Langford started the inning with a single, was bunted to second by McGuire, moved to third on a deep fly ball off the bat of Cory Morrison, and then came home on an infield hit by Al Read.
The PA Power threatened to take over the game in the sixth as Cooke worked himself into and out of a bases-loaded jam, getting a much-needed strike out to end the inning and the threat. Cooke then followed that up with a 1-2-3 seventh inning to seal the win and send the Victory on to the finals. Final score 3-2 Victory.
Game #7 - Tournament Final
The final game against Shaggy Dog of Erie PA started shortly after the PA Power game; by then it was past 5PM and the final had been scheduled to start at 4PM. The Carp players got a brief rest during the pre-game ceremonies, which included player introductions, a touching poem about Durk Sherman (the tournament's namesake who passed away during the 2009 tournament) read by his daughter, and a pre-game anthem played by the local school band. Carp continued their Monday coin-toss luck and won home team for the game, sending Neil Cooke to the pitching rubber to face the experienced and well rested Shaggy Dog players. Shaggy Dog was only on their 4th game of the weekend compared to the 4th consecutive game of the day and 7th of the weekend for Carp.
Shaggy's lead-off hitter got them off to a quick start by hitting a single, advancing to second on a sac bunt, and then scoring all the way from second on a deep fly ball to centre field when the throw from the outfield came in just over the head of Carp SS Kevin McGuire. Cooke had better luck in the second, retiring the side in order on a pair of ground balls and a pop-up to second. In the third, Shaggy Dog had a string of singles that saw them add another run and still have the bases loaded with just one out. They looked to be set to take control of the game, but Cooke struck out the #4 hitter and then got the #5 hitter to pop-up to second and cap Shaggy's scoring for the game at two runs. Cooke was nearly perfect over the remaining four innings, allowing just two runners to reach base.
Jeremy Manley was equally impressive on the mound, allowing just three base runners over seven innings on a single, double, and walk. Unfortunately for Carp, those three runners were all in separate innings and ended up stranded on the bases. Manley finished the game with 18 strike outs on his way to earning the tournament's top pitcher award.
Carp's Caleb Keeshig was presented with the MVP award for his role in the Victory's run to the finals. Final score 2-0 Shaggy Dog.
posted by fitzroyfastball | 9/13/2010 01:41:00 pm
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