By Jim
Flanagan, Editor, Fastpitchwest.com)
[ST. GEORGE,
UT-5/12/05]-Now in its sixth year, the Red Rock Tournament at
the Canyons Complex in St. George, Utah has become one of the
premier events west of the Rockies, earning a reputation for a
top notch facility, spectacular scenery, and attracting top
caliber teams and players, including some colder climates like
Canada who look to get their season started earlier than the
weather back home permits. This year, an entire team from
Minnesota,
Vannelli's decided to "go west" and play at Red Rock. For the
second year in a row, some of the games were broadcast live on
the internet, on Ballparkradio.com.
The field of
teams for 2005 included several from the ISC Top 25, #19 So Cal
Bombers, #20 Team Rainey, CA, and #21 Pueblo Bandits. So when
an upstart new team, the California Painters, from the Central
California “C” league wanted to make a run at the Red Rock
title, they reached into Canada to bolster their roster. They
borrowed pitchers Dean Holoien, from Saskatchewan Canada, and
Wayne Wells, from Ontario Canada. Holoien is regarded by many
as perhaps the best all-around player in the game, with hitting
abilities to match his status as one of the game's premier
pitchers. Built like the hockey player that he was, Holoien can
bring it, busting the radar gun at 83-84 mph, the fastball
equivalent of the high-nineties in baseball. Holoien was a
member of Team
Canada,
which took the silver medal team at the recent ISF World
Championships. Last year, Holoien broke the ASA record for
strikeouts in a game, with 21, and tossed a no-hitter in the
championship game. Remarkably, the feats came against two top
25 teams, the championship game no-hitter against the reigning
ISC world champions, Broken Bow, NY. Wayne Wells has pitched at
the senior Canadians to level, and pitched his team to a North
American title, even beyond his 40th birthday. Just for good
measure, they also added a teammate of Holoien's, and one of the
premier hitters in the game, Todd Budke. Budke spent time in the
New York Yankee farm system, and was a member of the 2004 ASA
Men's Major National Champions, the Farm Tavern from Madison
Wisconsin. In baseball terms, these player moves were like
adding Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Ichiro Suzuki to your
roster. Also joining the club for this season is Larry Ybarra,
an ISC World Tournament veteran for the So Cal Bucks and
Portland
teams.
Not
surprisingly, the roster moves by manager Jeff Coleman placed
the Painters among the pre-tournament favorites at Red Rock.
But in the competition from other teams would be stiff, with
several boasting rosters stocked with ISC caliber players,
including the Bombers, Team Rainey,
Pueblo, and
Mexicali,
Mexico.
Though unranked,
Mexicali
has taken second and third place in the last couple of AAU
International tournaments in Orlando, Florida. The So Cal
Bombers went through a major roster overhaul for 2005, adding
three players with Team USA experience, catcher Todd Garcia, and
pitchers Tony Peeples and Travis Price. Peeples and Price
departed last years' Team Rainey squad, along with three other
top hitters, Mike Butler, Nate Devine and Jason Porto, while
Team Rainey did some reloading of their own, bringing in British
Columbian ace, Bricklen Anderson, Tony Hunhoff and all around
talent, Sonny Perkins, along with the nucleus of Captain Dan's,
the only team to take 2004 Red Rock champions, Broken Bow the
distance.
Saturday's
Pool Play
The format for
the Red Rock tournament is for the 16 teams to play three games
on Saturday against teams in their respective pools, which
determines seating for two 8-team single elimination brackets.
The top 8 teams (two from each 4 team pool) advance to a
championship bracket Sunday while the other 8 head to a
consolation bracket of their own. Despite pre-tournament
prognostications, several of the other teams competing in Red
Rock in 2005 reminded everyone that the games are determined on
the field and not on paper, providing a number of surprises in
Saturday's pool play. The relatively unknown High Desert Dawgs
knocked off the So Cal Bombers first thing Saturday morning,
while the Bombers dropped one and needed to win a close game
against Pueblo to make the championship bracket. Both the
Bombers and Painters entered Sunday as # 2 seeds from their
respective pools. Four teams went 3-0 Saturday to claim the #1
seeds in their pools: the High Desert Dawgs, Team Rainey from
So Cal, and two home-state Utah teams, Larry Miller Chevy from
Salt Lake City and Castlewood, UT. The Painters, Bombers,
Mexicali and Page Brake all finished 2-1 and claimed # 2 seeds
and the other four spots in the championship bracket.
Single
Elimination Sunday
On "Single
Elimination Sunday", the # 2 seeds turned the tables on the
previously unbeaten top seeds. Team Rainey fell to unranked
Mexicali
beating Team Rainey, 5-4 in a nail biter; Castlewood fell to the
Painters and Larry Miller Chevy fell to Cal Bombers. The only #
1 seed to survive the first round were the High Desert Dawgs,
who topped Page Brake from Salt Lake City, Utah. By the second
round, all of the # 1 seeds were gone, as the Painters run-ruled
the High Desert Dawgs to claim one spot in the finals, while the
So Cal Bombers bats came alive, as they eliminated Mexicali in
the other.
Championship
Game:
California
Painters vs. So Cal Bombers
The
championship game was set then, an all-California final between
the So Cal Bombers and the California Painters. The highly
touted trio of "pick-ups" by the Painters had not disappointed.
Holoien and Wells won five games between them, and Budke
performed as the consummate professional hitter he is. And the
"new look" So Cal Bombers lived up to their name, giving aces
Peeples and Price plenty of run support.
For the
championship game, Red Rock fans were treated to a dream matchup,
with Dean Holoien for the Painters and Travis Price for the
Bombers, two pitchers who just last year, were pitching for
their respective countries at the ISF World Championships in
Christchurch, New Zealand, Holoien for Team Canada and Price for
Team USA.
The Painters
struck first, scoring one run in the first on singles by Javier
Fiero, Dean Holoien, and Larry Ybarra. The Bombers got even
quickly, on one swing of the bat on a Mike Butler home run in
the bottom of the first inning. The Bombers Arturo Solano led
off the bottom of the second inning with a solo home run to put
his team on top, 2-1 lead. But that lead was short-lived. In
the top of the third inning, Todd Budke drew a one-out walk,
advanced to third, and scored on a two-out single by Larry
Ybarra, tying the game, and bringing the catcher Jeff Twist to
the plate. Twist got a rise-ball-in and hit a towering 2-run
homer to left field, and giving his team a 4-2 lead. The
Bombers trimmed the lead to 4-3 when Mike Butler picked up his
second RBI of the game, singling home Dean Waltier, who had
reached on an error.
After both
Holoien and Price had easy fourth innings, the game headed to
the fifth. Painters' veteran third baseman Mick Ventura led off
the top of the inning with a double down the line. Ventura was
erased at third on a fielder's choice grounder to second, with a
nice play turned in by Mike Butler. Price got the next hitter
for the second out, bringing up Larry Ybarra, in the same
situation he faced in the third -- Budke aboard and two out.
Once again, Ybarra hit a two out single, his third of the game,
sending Budke to third, and bringing home run hero Jeff Twist to
the plate with two outs. In what proved to be the pivotal
moment of the game, Jeff Twist did it again - - hitting another
blast, this one a three run shot for a 7-3 one lead and 5 RBI on
the day. The Bombers made a pitching change, but never
recovered, as Painters' pitcher Dean Holoien settled in, and the
Painters added four more runs in the sixth on singles
by Jerrod Vassure, Tim Briscoe, Javier Fiero, a two-RBI single
by Holoien himself, and one more by Ybarra, capping his perfect
4-for-4 game, and giving the Painters a commanding 11-3 lead.
Needing one run to escape the 8-run rule, the Bombers put a
couple of runners aboard in the bottom of the sixth inning, but
could not score, and the California Painters were the 2005 Red
Rock Champions.
Ybarra,
Holoien, Wells and a Twist
The Painters'
Larry Ybarra was named the Most Valuable Player in the
tournament, while pitcher Dean Holoien picked up the Most
Valuable Pitcher award. Holoien smiled as he picked up the trophy, but
was quick to direct the praise in Ybarra's direction. "He must
have hit .800 in the tournament" Holoien said. "I don't think
he made an out today". Scorekeepers would tell you he wasn't
far off. Fellow Canadians Holoien and Wells both talked of
returning to Red Rock. In reflecting on the weekend, Holoien
said "The diamonds were in great shape, the weather was
fabulous, which made it an all around great tournament to be a
part of. This year's tournament I had the great fortune to play
with a team for the first time, the Painters. What a bunch!
What makes this sport great is the people you meet along the
way, and the Painters team is a great group of guys".
All Tournament
pitcher Wayne Wells echoed those comments, adding "The Canyons
Complex is a beautiful facility to hold a major tournament, you
have the scenery which is breath taking.........the field were
in excellent shape and remind me of the Wide World of Disney
Complex in Kissimmee, FL." Wells also mentioned enjoying the
night life in nearby
Mesquite where the team stayed.
Deservedly, Painters catcher Jeff Twist was named to the
All-Tournament team. Certainly he was the difference maker in
the championship game, with two home runs, and five RBI, on
perhaps his biggest day as a fastball player, and the reason we
say that the 2005 Red Rock Tournament "ended with a Twist".
Twist spent four years in professional baseball, in the farm
systems for the Colorado Rockies and the San Francisco Giants,
but is a relative newcomer to the game of men's fastball,
joining the Painters this year after short stints with the Sun
Devils and Leafs teams. His time in professional baseball gave
him the opportunity to learn the fine points of the game from
such notables as manager Don Baylor, hitting instructor Art
Howe, bench coach Don Zimmer, and catcher Ron Hasse. Now a
teacher and baseball coach in
Bakersfield
California, he now passes on some of that knowledge to the young
players of today. At age 31, he is looking to continue to hone
his fastball skills and progress to the next level. He knows of
the past greats that came from the Bakersfield area, the Ed
Smith Welding teams, with Paul Magan and Steve Schultz and
others. A great tradition to build upon, he suggests. Having
caught major league baseball pitchers in the past, he had high
praise for pitcher Dean Holoien. "My hand was sore for three
days after Red Rock", he says after catching Holoien. "He
throws hard, and his ball really jumps". "It was a great
experience to catch someone of his caliber" Twist adds. A
student of the game, Twist also enjoyed spending the weekend
talking ball Holoien, Budke, and USA Jr. men's coach, Tim Lyon,
players he says "know a lot about the right approach to the
game.” You can bet that when the 7th annual Red Rock rolls
around in 2006, Twist will have a harder time flying under the
radar of opposing pitchers.
Most Valuable
Team: City of
St. George
Grounds Crew
After awarding
the Most Valuable Player and Pitcher trophies, tournament
directors Ken Hackmeister (ISC), Josh Olmstead (City of St.
George) and Roy Stout (UIC) talked of the most valuable team.
"That had to be the grounds crew for the City of
St. George.
With the heavy rain that fell earlier in the week, it was
remarkable that they had the fields ready to play by Saturday
morning. The fields were under water. They worked round the
clock the last two days before the tournament began, to have
ready to go for the tournament. You really have to commend them
for the job they did"