From the Prince George Citizen
Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Brand lends a hand in win

by JASON PETERS, Citizen staff

In Ryan Brand’s view, he owed his Prince George Black Bears teammates a victory. By tossing a four-hitter and fanning 12 Stony Plain Twiliters batters, he delivered one.

Tuesday afternoon at Spruce City Stadium, Brand worked the full seven innings in a 6-2 Prince George victory over Stony Plain at the Canadian senior men’s fastpitch championship.

In the Bears’ opening game Sunday against Charlottetown, Brand entered the contest in a relief role. He began well, but then made a throwing error trying to nail a runner at third base. His mistake, which came in the seventh inning, helped Charlottetown dig out of a 6-3 hole and win 9-6.

“I struggled a bit in that first game — I came out in the last couple innings there and didn’t have my best performance, so I had to come out (Tuesday) and do what I know I can do and show the team that I can be right there,” said Brand, a 31-year-old from Calgary.

“(Against Stony Plain), we were just working the batters up, down, in and out — trying to keep them off balance, throw the odd changeup in there. (Catchers) Harvey (Stevenson) and Chad (Ghostkeeper) call good games so I just basically leave it up to the catcher.”

Brand and Ghostkeeper were also teammates this summer with the California-based SoCal Bombers. Ghostkeeper knows Brand well enough to know he can pitch even better than he did against the Twiliters.

“He’s better than that,” said Ghostkeeper, who — with two home runs — was also a key contributor in the win. “I know he can get better and he will get better, I think, as he gets called on.”

Ghostkeeper ripped a two-run home run in the first inning against the Twiliters, a repeat of his antics in an 8-1 Monday night win against the Vancouver Grey Sox. Leadoff hitter Darrell Sandback was again on the basepaths, and Ghostkeeper crushed a Craig Pidcock offering over the fence in centre field. In the top of the third, with Prince George ahead 3-1, Ghostkeeper pounded a solo homer, his fourth long ball of the tournament and the milestone 50th of the event. Three batters later, Randy Potskin cracked a two-run shot for a 6-1 Black Bears advantage.

This is Potskin’s fifth appearance at senior nationals, and he said he has never seen balls flying out of the park the way they are so far this week.

“That’s more than I thought there would be, that’s for sure,” Potskin said. “I don’t know if it’s the weather up here or the new bats or the pitchers not being able to pitch (off) one foot — it’s a little bit of everything, I’m sure.”

Many pitchers competing in the tournament are accustomed to throwing off one foot, as is the norm in the International Softball Congress and in the United States. Canadian rules, however, require chuckers to have two feet on the rubber before they go into their delivery.

Stony Plain picked up its first run in the bottom of the second inning on — surprise, surprise — a home run. Ron Joy did the damage, a shot to straight-away centre field off Brand. The Twiliters got one more run in the third. Neither team scored again after that.

Pidcock was relieved by Daryl Tilley in the top of the fifth inning. Together, Pidcock and Tilley gave up nine hits and struck out 10 batters.

With the victory, Prince George pushed its record to 3-1. Stony Plain dropped to 0-4.

n In Tuesday’s late game, the Black Bears shut out Newfoundland Impact Signs 6-0. Pitcher Korrey Gareau threw a four-hitter and fanned 11 batters. Ghostkeeper and Sandback both added to their home run totals, Ghostkeeper with a solo blast and Sandback with a two-run shot. The Bears (4-1) have a showdown tonight (8 p.m.) against St. Thomas (4-0).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 7:04 am and is filed under Canada, Players, Tournaments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.