By Kenn Oliver, The Telegram
He’s believed to be the first Canadian player to win an ISC, junior national and senior national championship titles in same season
As part of three championship teams in?August, Shane Boland, still just 21, accomplished more in one month than most softball players could hope for over an entire career on the diamond.
“I think about the accomplishments, but it’s still hard to believe we came away with a win from all these big tournaments,” says Boland..“It was a great month.”
The Goulds product’s historic month began with him helping the Kelly’s Pub Junior?Canadians claim a national junior men’s title in Owen Sound,?Ont. With a pair of hits — including a home run — Boland was named the top player in the championship game as he collected his second national junior crown, having won in 2009 with a group of Junior Canadians teammates who were much older than he was at the time.
“They weren’t really close friends,” he said of the 2009 team, “but when we won this year it was with my own group of buddies and it meant so much to me that they got to experience what it felt like.”
Immediately following the junior nationals, Boland hopped a flight for Midland,?Mich., and the International Softball Congress World Tournament, where he joined his brother, Ryan, and St. John’s Molson Senior Men’s Softball League counterpart Sean?Cleary on the Jarvis, Ont., Travelers, the defending ISC world tourney champs.
And while Boland, an ISC circuit rookie this summer, didn’t play a major role with the team, he did figure to the team successfully defending its title by scoring the winning run while pinch-running for Ryan?Wolfe in the eighth inning of the championship game against the Hill?United?Chiefs.
“To be in those type of games, you have to step your level up to its peak and you’ve always got to be there because everyone’s a class act,” Boland says. “At 21-years-old, to be in the championship game as part of the Jarvis Travelers was amazing.
“I can’t wait for next season to start.
After returning home for five days to catch his breath, Boland was packing his bat and glove once again, this time bound for Fredericton,?N.B., with the 3Cheers Pub, one of three Newfoundland entries for the national senior softball championships.
Boland played in six of the team’s nine games at nationals, and while he wasn’t involved in the rain-shortened championship clincher, the versatile player felt honoured to be part of the first Newfoundland team to win a national senior crown.
“We thought it was our time to make a good run and go win this tournament and things worked out in our favour
“That was a big one.”Boland is believed to be the first Canadian softball player to win an ISC, junior national and senior national championship team in the same season.