Archive for September, 2005

Final Ontario ISC II Rankings

Friday, September 30th, 2005

Here are the season-ending Ontario ISC II Rankings. Congratulations to the Elmira Cubs, vaulting 8 spots to #1 in the rankings. The bracketed numbers refer to the last rankings which were released around July 31.

1 (9) Elmira Cubs – Won the biggest tournament of the year and will be in Kitchener to defend their title on home turf. The best may still be ahead for this team which is a great collection of young players combined with some veteran leadership.

2 (7) Port Elgin Blue Devils – Breezed through their league, but didn’t play in the playoffs due to player shortage – looked very good in Chippewa Falls. Another team with a bright future if they can stay together.

3 (1) Niagara Snappers – Won a lot of tournaments, including the tough Snapper Shootout and Innerkip ISC II Qualifer. Should have most of their team back for next year.

4 (4) Ottawa Team Easton Thunder – Were two feet away from tying their semi-final game at the ToC in the bottom of the seventh. They’ve got the pitching, just need one more bat in the lineup.

5 (2) Tavistock Smully’s Merchants – Another bridesmaid finish in the South Perth league tourney for Tavi. Will likely lose Fred Follings to Shakespeare next year for ISC II play and rumours are swirling about other players moving on, but that shouldn’t take away from an exceptional season.

6 (8) Bridgeport Braves – Dropped a second round playoff game to Elmira at the ToC, but rebounded to win the South Perth league championship.

7 (-) Alvinston Indians – Were as good as anyone in the second half of the season, winning the Glencoe and Alvinston tourneys and finishing tied for third at the ToC.

8 (4) Palermo Athletics – Ran into the Eric Steinbeck buzzsaw in Chippewa Falls, but showed their capabilities in winning the Intermediate elims.

9 (6) Harriston Mercurys – Fell about two feet short in tying their quarter final game against Port Elgin. Will need to take the long way through qualifying to get to Kitchener.

10 (-) Toronto Champion Indians – Won the Ontario Challenge Cup and are in the finals of the Oshawa league.

Honourable mentions:
Orangeville Resolve Kings – opened a lot of eyes in finishing a strong second at the Ontario Challenge Cup.

Waterdown Hammer – finished second in the tough Elkland First Weekend Tournament and lost only once in the GHFL regular season.

Micksburg Twins – hard to go wrong with Cory Costello, who had a monster season and was named to the All-Tournament team at the ToC.

Kitchener Phoenix Outlaws – hit the ball a ton, lead by Tim Dubois. With the right pitching, could step up and make some noise in ISC II. Finished third at the Challenge Cup.

Highgate Rock – strong showing at the Intermediate elims in finishing second and are among the final four in the St. Thomas league.

Glencoe Astros – put up a good showing at the qualifier after losing early and are in the St. Thomas league finals.

Congratulations to all the tournament and league winners this year in what has been an outstanding summer for Ontario fastball.

On a personal note, I want to thank all the teams and players for their support of the ISC II program and for those who love the game and voice their opinions about how to make things better here on ghfl.ca.

There have been many highlights this year, but once again Ontario teams have shown their mettle by not only winning the ISC II championship for a fourth straight year, but all 10 teams made the playoffs and Ontario teams took 7 of the top 8 placings.

The four-team photo with Elmira, Port Elgin, Ottawa & Alvinston was a proud moment for Ontario fastball. Hopefully we’ll see even better things in Kitchener.

Cheers,

Blair Setford
ISC II Commissioner

Hammer nail down Waterdown championship

Friday, September 30th, 2005

The Waterdown Hammer took home the Waterdown Championship last night, winning 9-4 over the Hamilton Hawks. They broke open a tight game with a bunch of runs in the 6th inning.

Brian Lisk got the win for the Hammer.
Dwayne Singer took the loss for the Hawks.

Dean Carr, Joe Reeves, and Kyle Davis each got a couple of ribbies for the Hammer.

Dwayne Singer hit a 2 run shot for the Hawks.

Congratulations to the Hammer on a well played series, as well as having a fine season overall. Good job fellas.

Brian Costie
Hamilton Hawks

ISC II Stats by Team now available

Friday, September 30th, 2005

Thanks to ISC II Statistician, Hank de Wild we now have the Statistics by team from the ISC II Tournament of Champions held last month in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

Visit this site to get the index of teams then click on the team you wish to review to see their stats.
http://www.iscfastpitch.com/webstartme/tours/2005world/isc2/tstatsb.htm

The main page for ISC II 2005 is at:
http://www.iscfastpitch.com/webstartme/tours/2005world/isc2/main.htm

Schedule set for Eastern Ontario showdown

Friday, September 30th, 2005

Looks like the dates are set for the Eastern Ontario Regional Final – times are subject to change but I think this will be it:

Game 1: Tuesday Oct 4, 8PM Micksburg at Team Easton (in Stittsville)

Game 2: Friday Oct 7, 8PM Team Easton at Micksburg

Should be some great ball, if you are in the area, c’mon out.

If the teams split the games, I believe they are going to have a sudden death “mini-game” immediately following game 2; i.e. first team to have a lead after a complete inning is the champ.

Adam Brown

Glencoe disposes of Alvinston – will meet Union in St. Thomas final

Thursday, September 29th, 2005

Thursday September 29, 2005

The Glencoe Astros’ long ball made short work of the Alvinston Indians as the defending champions routed the host 11-0 Wednesday in decisive game five of the St. Thomas and District Fastball League semifinal.

Tim Stover, Kyle Mitchell, Brett Neal and Shawn Winship all hit home runs. Stover also had a two-run single in the third inning and Rich Galbraith went three-for-three. Winship was the winning pitcher while Greg Moore took the loss for the Indians.

Glencoe meets the Union Storm in the STDFL championship starting Friday in Fingal at 8 p.m.

The complete schedule for the best of 5 Final is:

Friday Sept. 30th 8:00pm in Fingal
Sunday Oct. 2nd 7:30pm in Glencoe
Tuesday Oct 4th 8:00pm in Fingal
Thursday Oct 6th 8:00pm in Glencoe (if Nec)
Friday Oct 7th 8:00pm in FIngal (if Nec)

Both teams have web sites that are usually updated after games:

Union – www.unionstormfastball.com
Glencoe – www.glencoeastros.ca

Wells over Patterson in game 1 of Oshawa finals

Thursday, September 29th, 2005

Toronto, ON

Oshawa City & District Fastball League

Final Series
Game #1
Cobourg Diamond Kings 1 Toronto Champion Indians 0

WP Wayne Wells
LP Grant Patterson

Sylvia Ryan
sylvia.ryan at rogers.com

Phoenix Outlaws are Crowned the Champions of the KFL

Thursday, September 29th, 2005

Kitchener, ON

Phoenix Outlaws defeated the Waterloo Classics 5-1 in winning the best of 5 Championship Series 3 games to 1 to claim the KFL championship.

The Classics started out on the right foot by scoring their only run in the first inning, and the game stayed at 1-0 until the Phoenix exploded for 4 runs in the 4th inning. Phoenix then added one more run in the 6th.

Mel Ross, once again, got the win for the Phoenix giving up 7 hits and recording 5 strike outs, in his 3rd win of the series.

Peter Spitzig started the game for the Classics and took the loss. Spitzig gave up 4 runs on 7 hits and 2k, before being relieved by Don Stebbing, who gave up 1 run on 3 hits and no strike outs.

The Phoenix were led by Richie Gordon who went 2 for 3 at the plate along with Jim Culling and Sean Geehan who chipped in a couple hits each.

John Sexton once again lead the Classics going 3 for 4 in the game.

On behalf of both teams I would like to say thanks to Trevor Botting and the rest of the executive of the KFL for another fine year and the many hours spent putting the league together.

Hope you all winter well, and return for another year of Fastball in the spring.

Rick Boyd
rdboyd@rogers.com

Some Comments on Comments

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

As you may have noticed, this blog, The Deuce, and our other blog, Morning Brief, permit readers to post their own comments on any story posted, by clicking that little comments link below this post (the one that says “No Comments” at the moment 😉

A simple, one-time registration is required, much like that used at the Fastpitchwest Forum, where you pick a login handle and enter your email. You can remain anonymous by choosing a generic login, e.g. “fastballfan” etc. You then receive a password via email to login (which you can change to something simple the first time you log in)

If you’re like me, you probably find the login/password to be a bit of a nuisance. Why hassle with it? Well, unfortunately, there are little spam ‘bots that crawl the internet, posting advertisements and worse, so the login prevents that.

We love to hear what you think about any story posted at The Deuce, so we invite and encourage you to post your comments.

p.s. And if you’re one of those people that loses passwords easily, feel free to forward it to us, at savemypassword@fastpitchwest.com
where we’ll save it til you need it. Just be sure to add your name so we can locate it later, or send an update if you change the original password assigned.

Waterdown Hammer take 2-1 lead in WMFL finals

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

Waterdown, ON

In stark contrast to game 2 which had 24 runs and took nearly three hours to play, game 3 was won 3-1 by the Hammer to take a 2 games to 1 lead over the Hawks. This game took, ohhh, about an hour and half less time than game 2 to complete!

Rod Favreau got the win for Hammer

Chad Reed took the loss for the Hawks

Hammer: Joe Reeves 1/3, HR, Dave Kingdon 2/3, RBI
Hawks: Kevin Shewfelt 2/3, 3B, HR

Game 4 goes Thursday Sept 29 at 8pm in Millgrove.

Brian Costie
Hamilton Hawks

Eastern Ontario showdown set

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

Well, the consensus expected teams have come through the playoffs of their respective leagues in Eastern Ontario.

Kanata Team Easton won the Greater Ottawa League, 3 games to 1 in the best of five over the Stittsville 56ers. Third year in a row as GOFL champs for Easton.

Micksburg Twins won the Upper Ottawa Valley League, 4 games to 2 in the best of seven over the Campbell’s Bay Royals. Second year in a row as UOVMFL champs for Micksburg and 4 out of the last 5.

So now we have Micksburg facing Team Easton in what is scheduled to be a best of three regional final. Micksburg has home field advantage as they edged Team Easton 3-2 in regular season league cross over play. (Hopefully scheduling/weather will allow for a best of three series – up to the captains to schedule the games.)

Dan Konkle vs. Cory Costello – should be some excellent ball.

Adam Brown

Alvinston Indians force game 5 in St. Thomas semi-final

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

In the absence of Alvinston Indians mainstay pitchers Doug Charlton and Brad Young, rookie pitcher Greg Moore, with a little help from Norm Logan, held a potent Glencoe offence to 1 run enabling the Indians to win 3-1 to even the series at two games apiece with Game 5 to be played Wednesday Sept 28 in Alvinston at 8:00 pm.
(more…)

Phoenix Outlaws take 2-1 lead in KFL final

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

Kitchener, ON

KFL resumed it’s Championship series tonight, with the Phoenix Outlaws blanking the Waterloo Classics 3-0

Phoenix Pitcher Mel Ross got the win with a tidy 4 hitter along with 4 strike outs. Don Stebbings got the loss giving up 6 hits and striking out 3.

Phoenix spread out their hits through the order with 6 batters recording singles: Adam Snider, Jeff Hatt, Tim Dubois, Sean Geehan, Joe Siefreid and Travis Murdoch.

Classics were lead by John Sexton with two singles, Keith Woodward and Ben Blackwell each chipped in a single.

With Phoenix now leading the best of 5 series, 2 games to 1, game 4 in the series goes Wed. Sept 28th at Budd Park at 7:00 PM

Game 5 (if necessary) will go the following night at Budd Park at 8:00PM

Rick Boyd