From the Prince George Citizen newspaper:

Friday, September 1, 2006

Merchants sold on Wagar
Ontario pitcher shuts down Black Bears with three-hitter

by TED CLARKE and SCOTT STANFIELD Citizen staff
Evan Potskin’s round-trip journey down the basepaths at Spruce City Stadium wasn’t enough for the Prince George Black Bears.

They needed a long-ball merry-go-round to contend with the Jarvis Merchants.

Scott Wagar did not give them that option in a 4-1 Merchants victory at the Canadian Senior Men’s Fastpitch Championship. The 32-year-old from Virgil, Ont., found his way into a zone the Black Bears rarely entered, on his way to a nine-strikeout, three-hit outing.

“He kept mixing it up, throwing a lot of off-speed pitches and keeping us off-balance,” said Potskin, the Black Bears shortstop, who cranked the first pitch he saw in the seventh inning over the left field fence.

Wagar is not an overpowering pitcher, but his deliveries kept the Prince George batters baffled and swinging at air. That’s just the way he planned it.

“I was just changing speeds and keeping the ball down,” Wagar said. “If you have a good hitting team and you get the ball up where they can really turn on it, well…Evan demonstrated what can happen.

“We didn’t get a lot of big hits, they were just at the right time.”

The Ontario senior champions are coming off a 15th-place finish at the ISC (International Softball Congress) world championship. Both teams had 4-2 records heading into Thursday’s meeting.

Prince George starter Korrey Gareau of Victoria gave up seven hits, including a solo home run in the fourth to Brad Robinson of Moonstone, Ont., that started the scoring. Robinson’s big hit was the 78th home run of the tournament, believed to be a record for the senior nationals. Jarvis added two runs in the fifth, the first coming off an RBI single from Steve Running, who later scored on a sacrifice fly by catcher Greg Courneyga.

Gareau could not be blamed for the Bears’ power failure. After collecting 31 runs in their first five games, the Bears have just one run in their last two games.

Prince George picked up its first hit in the sixth inning, a single by designated player Lance Potskin. Potskin, however, would get no closer than second base after strikeouts by Randy Potskin and Chad Ghostkeeper and a ground out by Daryl Sandback.

Gareau was yanked in the sixth inning to give Ryan Brand some work. Brand tried to field Ryan Thompson’s slow roller with an underhanded flip, but the ball fell short of Harvey Stevenson’s glove at first base. Team Canada infielder Ian Fehrman then brought Thompson home from second with an infield hit to complete the scoring.

“Lately we have been hitting a lot of home runs and it’s nice to manufacture runs with sacrifice flies or that kind of thing,” said Jarvis outfielder Bob Gillow, the 26-year-old resident of Ayr, Ont., who collected two hits off Gareau.

“Our team is rolling right now and we don’t want to get too high about that, we just want to continue it. We’ve worked hard every game and it’s showing. We don’t have the speed that some teams do but we have smart baserunners, which makes it look like we have a lot more speed. We have more stolen bases than we have the last couple years and that’s the hard work showing.”

After a slow start, the Merchants won their last four games of the round robin to finish at 5-2. They’ll play the third-place Saskatoon Aspen Interior Black Sox (5-2) in tonight’s late-game starting at 8 p.m.

Jarvis, Prince George, St. Thomas and Saskatoon, by virtue of their top-four finishes, each have two playoff lives left. That means they would have to be beaten twice to be eliminated from title contention. The bottom four teams, Stony Plain, Alta. (3-4), Charlottetown (2-5), Vancouver (2-5) and Newfoundland (0-7), face single-game elimination playoffs starting Saturday.

With the loss to Jarvis, the host Black Bears will finish fourth in the round-robin tournament, and face a first-round playoff encounter with the defending champion St. Thomas Evergreen Centennials. On Wednesday, Cents ace Frank Cox, of Owen Sound, Ont., shut out Prince George 3-0.

“They have a strong pitcher and we have to make adjustments,” said Ghostkeeper, the Bears catcher/right fielder. “We all know how to play the game and how to hit the ball and if we have a pitcher that throws lots down and changes up, we have to make adjustments. We’ll be ready (tonight).”

The Cents go into tonight’s playoffs having wrapped up the round robin undefeated at 7-0, after an 8-3 win over Charlottetown Thursday afternoon. In other games Thursday, Saskatoon dumped the Vancouver Grey Sox 6-3, and Stony Plain, Alta. defeated Newfoundland 5-4.

“It doesn’t really matter who we play — we have to beat the best to be the best, as long as we have a double life,” said Evan Potskin.

“I think we took it too easy the last couple games because we already accomplished our goal of getting in the top-four. Hopefully at playoff time we’ll be ready. We have a great hitting team and as long as we get hitting we have a chance of winning it.”

The silver lining for the Black Bears is they get to play the early game tonight, before the heat of the day rises into the night sky. With temperatures dipping into the mid-single digits, that suits the Black Bears and their fans just fine.

“We’ve been playing the 8 o’clock games the past few nights and it’s been cold, so playing earlier in the daylight will be a nice change,” said Bears centre fielder Randy Potskin. “We know what to expect from St. Thomas and I think we’ll be ready this time.”

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