Thanks to Cesar Rodriguez, Bombers’ coach and webmaster for this report on the team’s weekend in Vancouver:

2007 VANCOUVER CHALLENGE – Comments:

This past weekend certainly was a good tune up for the World Tournament and obviously we’re pleased with our performance in winning the event, especially in defeating some very good clubs including the #1 ranked Broken Bow Gremlins in the final. Our team hasn’t been together for three weeks and the weekend was important in terms of getting back to work and to the process of our season’s plan.

I thought all areas of the team were pretty strong given our layoff and we know that they will have to be in order to have similar success in a few weeks. Our pitching effort was good with all three pitchers showing some great signs of being ready for the challenge of the WT. Our hitting came along throughout the weekend and our at bats improved game after game. We played our usual aggressive style and took advantage of opportunities whenever they presented themselves.

Lucas Mata won the top pitcher award and Darren Box was MVP but any number of players could be pointed out for great performances not the least of which included Steve Pinocchio, Adam Lalonde, Jason Porto and Evan Potskin.

The other news of the weekend was that we made a major signing in adding Doug Chase to our coaching staff. With our third coach, Cesar Rodriguez unable to attend the WT, we felt we needed another set of eyes going into the World’s. If we’re going to do this job effectively, we want all the different areas covered.

Doug (former All-World catcher with Victoria and the Farm) will be with us through the WT and will focus on pitching and catching with an eye to scouting opposing hitters for us. His experience and insights will balance well with Coach Shick and myself. Doug has history with both of us, having played with Rob early in his softball career, and he and I coached together on the Canadian National team.

The Bombers would like to thank the Vancouver Grey Sox for their hospitality and for a very well run and enjoyable tournament. Now it’s a weekend off and then out to Kitchener to start the World Tournament. We have had some great success in our recent tournaments but as our own Lucas Mata says, “we have to take it slowly”. At the World’s, all the teams will be better than they are right now, and the Bombers will not be taken lightly, so we have to be equally ready to stay focused on every pitch, every inning.

C-Rod – So Cal Bombers

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 2:54 pm and is filed under ISC, Teams, 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.