From the: Prince George Citizen

Cents have minds set on repeat
by TED CLARKE Citizen staff

Rob O’Brien had an early wake-up call Wednesday.

He had a job to do at Spruce City Stadium — putting the bats of the Saskatoon Aspen Interior Black Sox to sleep.

The 32-year-old St. Thomas Evergreen Centennials pitcher made quick work of the Black Sox at the Canadian Senior Men’s Fastpitch Championship as he faced just 18 batters over five innings in a 9-0 pasting. A master of the riseball, O’Brien rose to the occasion and struck out eight batters while allowing just three hits before the mercy rule kicked in.

“We came out ready to play and everyone hit the ball,” said O’Brien. “We knew these guys were a good team and we had come out flat they probably would have done the same thing to us,” said O’Brien, a native of St. John’s, Nfld.

“Craig Crawford called a great game behind the plate and wherever he called it, we hit the spot, and that was the key to the game.”

O’Brien has spent most of his summer days playing ball in Canada, which means he’s had to get used to touching the rubber with both feet during his windup. In the big-money American tournaments, pitchers are required to make contact with just one foot.

“I’m happy with throwing with two feet on the rubber,” he said. “You take a couple miles an hour off when you throw that way, but I’ve been doing it since Day 1 this year. I threw in the world championships that way and I felt great with it. I find I hit spots better when I throw with two feet on the rubber.”

Ryan Wolfe continued to hold a hot bat and welcomed Saskatoon pitcher Sean Whitten to the game with a base hit over Whitten’s head. Tex Lessard followed up with another hard-hit ball to left field, and Steve Mullaley laid down a sacrifice bunt to score Wolfe, the only run the Cents would need. Back-to-back doubles by Mark Coleman and Chris Payne brought in two more runs to add to Whitten’s misery.

The wind gusting in from right field didn’t prevent St. Thomas from scoring, but it did calm the long-ball excitement that has characterized the tournament. More than 50 home runs have been hammered out of Spruce City Stadium and Wolfe added to the total with two out in the second when he launched a rocket over the fence.

A series of singles led to three more St. Thomas runs in the fourth, and Wolfe completed the damage with an RBI single in the fifth.

The Black Sox threatened to extend the game in their half of the fifth, after consecutive hits by Jason Hitchings and Geoff Evely, but Bill Simmons hit right at Chris Jones at third base, who tagged Hitchings and forced out Evely at second to end the game.

“Any time you play a team like that, you have to bring your A-game and any mistakes, they’ll take advantage of it, and that’s what they did,” said Hitchings, the Black Sox centre fielder.

“They hit lots of singles and just made their scoring opportunities count.”

Saskatoon (3-2) went on to beat Newfoundland Impact Signs 7-0. Newfoundland (0-5) will try for its first win this morning (9 a.m.) against the Stony Plain Twiliters. The Alberta team earned its first win of the tournament Wednesday afternoon, a 9-5 decision over Charlottetown Razzy’s Roadhouse Fawcetts, then dumped the Vancouver Grey Sox 6-0. The Fawcetts (2-3) came back with a 2-0 win over the Jarvis (Ont.) Merchants.

The Cents are the defending champions and following their 3-0 win Wednesday over the Prince George Black Bears Wednesday night, sit undefeated at 6-0. St. Thomas will be the top seed heading into Friday’s playoff round. They’ll finish out the round-robin today at 3 p.m. against Charlottetown.

“Our goal is to finish in the top-four so we get two lives (in the double-knockout playoff round),” said Cents manager Bill Horne. “It doesn’t matter to us whether we finish first or fourth, as long as we’re in there.”

The Cents are essentially the same team they were in 2005, with Mullaley, Tim McCumber and Dale Levey added to the mix of 15 returnees. The team spent close to $30,000 on the trip to Prince George, with another $30,000 already gone toward tournament travel.

“We’re probably a $60,000- or $70,000-a-year budget team and you’ve got to have some good sponsors and raise some money to do it,” said Horne. “We’re not up there with the big $150,000-$200,000 American teams. Most of these guys play in the States elsewhere in the summer and then come back and play with us.”

n Cents pitcher Trevor Wardell flew back to his home in Chatsworth, Ont., to attend his father-in-law’s funeral, but is expected to return to Prince George for Friday’s games…Simmons and national team member Keith Macintosh arrived in Prince George Tuesday night and were in the lineup for Saskatoon to face St. Thomas in their first appearances at the national tournament. Mackintosh, one the world’s best hitters, struck out and grounded out in his two at-bats against O’Brien.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 31st, 2006 at 11:55 am and is filed under Canada, 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.