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By JACOB ROBINSON, SIMCOE REFORMER
Over the years, the Jarvis Travelers have won plenty of big name tournaments, but there was one — the ISC World Championship — that elude them. Making matters worse, the team had to sit and watch their Ontario rivals from Kitchener win each of the past two summers.
This year though, with a revamped roster, Jarvis finally climbed to the top of the mountain, winning their first ISC World Tournament Title in Midland, Michigan, Saturday night.
“It was amazing really, that’s what you live for,” said pitcher Andrew Phibbs. “That’s what you play the game for and it was really a dream come true.”
There was no shortage of storylines heading into the final game either. Three straight wins — one in extra innings — to start the week left Jarvis within shouting distance of the one-game, winner-take-all showdown.
The team hit a snag along the way though. A loss to the New York Gremlins 3-1 on Thursday in the “winner’s bracket” meant the club would have to win once on Friday, which they did, and then back-to-back contests Saturday just to have a chance at facing the undefeated Kitchener Rivershark Twins in the final.
“We knew that we had to win three games to win the championship, and we’ve beaten all three teams before, so before we left the hotel we said, ‘Let’s just take it one inning at a time, one game at a time,'” explained Travelers GM Clarke Staats.
After a 3-1 victory over Harrisburg Friday, things took what seemed like a disastrous turn in the quarter-final. The team’s ace, Aussie Adam Folkard, was taken out due to a shoulder injury and would be unable to return.
Unfazed, Jarvis turned to Trevor Ethier and Phibbs, who hadn’t been used for the entire week.
“Andrew didn’t get the ball at all…I talked to (coach) Daryl (Fehrman) during the week and said, ‘We’d better get Andrew throwing because we’re going to need him.’ He threw batting practice, and nobody likes to do that, but he did and when he got the call to come in, he was pretty excited. I know a few people that were nervous, but Andrew is such a competitor and a great athlete, and he wants the ball,” said Staats.
Phibbs held strong and the Travelers scored two on a passed ball in the eighth inning to edge Chicago/New York 6-4.
The semifinal against the Gremlins also went into extra innings, where shortstop Ian Fehrman hit a three-run home run in the 10th to give Jarvis a lead. They would hold on despite giving up two in the bottom half to win 5-4.
In the final, the powerful Rivershark Twins were waiting.
The Twins were without their ace Todd Martin, and so both teams took to the diamond looking for their depth pitchers to provide the biggest win of their careers.
Jarvis took a 2-0 lead in the second with two runs on three hits. Kitchener cut the deficit to 2-1 in the bottom half, and with the bases loaded, Jarvis took out Ethier and turned to Phibbs.
“Facing their number four batter Pat Shannon — it was a tough situation, your heart is pounding for something like that,” said Phibbs. “I just threw the ball and things worked out.”
Phibbs retired the next two batters to get out of the inning and, at that point, a world title seemed very possible.
“You got the sense right then and there that we have a good shot at winning,” said Staats.
“Andrew settled right in, hit the targets and proved that he’s a world class pitcher. We knew that Adam’s shoulder probably wasn’t going to allow him to play, and I can’t say enough about the job (Phibbs) did. He made the difference for us.”
Nick Shailes and Brad Rona hit back-to-back solo home runs in the sixth to extend the lead. In the seventh inning, with two down, Phibbs got Kitchener’s Ryan Wolfe to ground out to Ian Fehrman, who delivered a strike to Travelers veteran Pat Graham at first to end it.
“When I saw that ball go to Ian, we knew he would make the play, and Pat is always sure-handed, that’s why he was in the game,” explained Staats. “And when it hit Pat’s mitt, it was party time. It’s a pretty amazing feeling — it’s still sinking in.”
The script was something out of a movie for Phibbs, who didn’t look like he’d be called upon at the start of the week.
“It was like, I didn’t really believe I was in that predicament,” he said. “When you’ve got someone like Adam Folkard, he should be pitching in that situation, but he wasn’t able to go. For me to be in there was just awesome. We had a lot of guys that hadn’t won the ISC Championship before — we figured we had only 4 guys had won it — to be able to help them and be a big part of it was pretty special.”
Jacob Robinson
jrobinson (at) bowesnet.com