THE CROSSROADS - Friday, May 20, 2016 – 3 Sask...
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THE CROSSROADS - Friday, May 20, 2016 – 3 16053SS2 16053MS0 ANDREW MCCORMACK of The Crossroads The Fertile Valley Baseball League is down to nine teams for the 2016 season after the Brock Braves announced they were folding Monday. After a nine-year existence as a team, and being one of the first four teams (along with the Rosetown Angels, Eston Badgers and Kinder- sley Klippers) to form the FVBL a couple years later, family commitments and a lack of pitching meant the end of hardball in Brock. Braves player/manager Matt Speir wasn’t ready to put a team on the field that wasn’t going to be able to get enough guys out to every game or produce high-enough qual- ity pitching to stay competitive in games. “The core group is getting into their late 30s and have family and other commitments. We were all just getting a little bit too busy to try to do everything,” Speir said on Tuesday. “We were always really short on pitching, and we just had zero this year. You can’t field a team with that. We probably could have strung a team together with that, but none of us wanted to do it and just be a joke. So it was like, ‘Wow, well it’s time to shut it down.’” The Braves have never made the final in FVBL play, but made it on two occasions to the semifinals. They may have had a hard time coming across pitching, but were consis- tently a threat in the league. Byron Ismond has played with the Kinder- sley Raiders since 2007 and knew you could never take the Braves lineup lightly. “You never took any game (against Brock) for granted, that’s for sure,” said Ismond. “They always had their core of four or five guys that are really good hitters - and the oth- er guys aren’t slouches either - but you knew four or five of them could really hit the ball, so you were always playing with an edge.” You’ll still see many of the Braves getting out and taking their shots on the ice come winter. Many of the ball players play on the Braves play on a rec hockey team, and fre- quently encounter the Raiders guys on the ice. The Brock team and the Raiders players often join forces playing Canada’s national winter sport sometime during the winter “It’s a good group of guys, (the Raiders) get along well with them,” said Ismond. “And they join up with the old timers and us dur- ing the old-timers’ tournament, so we usually wind up playing together at some point in the year.” Naturally baseball was a sport the Braves were passionate about, but Speir says it’s the good times with all his friends he’ll miss most about having a team in Brock. “Just probably good times with all my friends is the best thing that stood out to me. We were always semi-competitive and had al- ways had a good time,” he said. “It was a good run and we wish we could have kept it going, but it just didn’t work out.” Due to the Braves bowing out, the league has changed to three divisions from two - East - West and Central. In the East, there will be Elrose, Kyle and Beechy. In the Central Division there will be Rosetown, Eston and the Kindersley Klip- pers. In the West - Kindersley Raiders, Eato- nia Wheat Kings and Kindersley Midget Roy- als. Each team will now play 10 game, a home- and-away game against each team in their di- vision, then one game each against the other teams. The league begins Monday with the Kindersley Royals travelling to Rosetown and the Klippers visiting Eston. Tuesday will see the Kyle Yellow Jackets travel to Elrose to take on the Aces and the Eatonia Wheat Kings taking on the Raiders. On Wednesday, the Eston Ramblers will be in Kindersley to take on the Royals and on Thursday, the Beechy Breakers will travel to Elrose. Brock Braves hang up their collective cleats League moves to three divisions; action kicks off Monday ANDREW MCCORMACK of The Crossroads The Sask-Alta Baseball League has been back in action for a week and a half, and four of the 10 teams remained undefeated as of Wednesday. The Burstall Braves are one of those teams, after taking down the Richmound Rockets 6-5 on May 12. The Braves lost in the playoffs last year to the Rockets, but were led to redemption by Kurtis Pidlisney, who went two for five with a home run and three runs scored. On Friday the 13th the Maple Creek Mo- hawks put up 13 runs as they won their first game of the season 13-4 against the debuting Medicine Hat Vipers. Hitting clean up, Lane Sanderson had three hits in four at bats, while scoring three times and stealing two bases. Saturday saw the Shaunavon Badgers take down the Climax Cardinals 4-1 in the Cardinals’ league debut. Kirk Amon had a pair of hits in two at bats, including his first home run of 2016. Justin Illerbrun turned in an effective start. He was credited with the win after throwing seven strikeouts over five shutout innings of one-hit ball, despite walk- ing five. Sunday wasn’t as good to Shaunavon as they were dealt an 8-3 loss by the Gull Lake Greyhounds. Playing the field, Illerbrun hit well in the leadoff spot, going two for three with a double. But raking a pair of doubles, scoring three times and recording a stolen base for the Greyhounds was Brendan Jones. Playing the second half of back-to-back days didn’t work for Gull Lake either, as the Cabri River Rats beat the Greyhounds 7-2 this past Monday. Ryan Svenson, Kade Behm and George Hudec (two doubles) had a pair of hits apiece backing Andrew Garland to a 1-0 record in Cabri’s first tilt of the year. As if the Mohawks didn’t flash enough of- fence with their 13 runs last Friday, Maple Creek came out of Climax with a 15-1 win Tuesday night. The other game saw the Rock- ets leave Black Sox territory with a 7-3 win. Scores for the Thursday-night game of the Vipers at the Braves were not available at the time of publication. The long weekend means there isn’t much on tap for the SABL this week. Monday has a rematch between the Badgers and Grey- hounds in Gull Lake as both teams try to im- Sask-Alta Baseball League gets underway prove their win-loss record to 2-1. And six teams are slated for action on Thursday, including Gull Lake at the Medi- cine Hat Cypress County Black Sox, Rich- mound at Burstall and Maple Creek travel- ling to Medicine Hat to take on the Vipers. The Swift Current Yard Goats aren’t sched- uled to play their first SABL game (they were rained out last week) until May 23. Which means they join the Braves (1-0), River Rats (1-0) and Mohawks (2-0) as the teams yet to lose. Kirk Amon of the Shaunavon Badgers tries to avoid a tag by Gull Lake Greyhounds catcher Joel Butts. DAVID ZAMMIT/GULL LAKE ADVANCE Don’t Shell Out a Lot of Cash... Use the Classifieds! Box 1150, Kindersley, sK • (306) 463-4611 May 11th marked my first day of work writing for Ja- mac Publishing, where I’ll be typing letters on the key- board until they come together in a way that tells you how I see what’s going on sports-wise. Growing up in Sarnia, Ont., playing and following sports was always a passion of mine. And an opportunity to write about them for a living is something I am hon- oured to have a shot at. Playing baseball and hockey has been a constant throughout my life. A variety of teams in other sports, such as soccer, swimming and flag football, have also been bur- dened with my presence on their roster before. If you have any sports stories or ideas to share please call Andrew at 306-463-4611 or email at [email protected]. New sports reporter joins the Jamac Publishing team New sports reporter Andrew McCormack is ready to take on the area sports scene.
Transcript of THE CROSSROADS - Friday, May 20, 2016 – 3 Sask...
THE CROSSROADS - Friday, May 20, 2016 – 3
16053SS2
16053MS0
ANDREW MCCORMACK
of The Crossroads
The Fertile Valley Baseball League is down to nine teams for the 2016 season after the Brock Braves announced they were folding Monday. After a nine-year existence as a team, and being one of the first four teams (along with the Rosetown Angels, Eston Badgers and Kinder-sley Klippers) to form the FVBL a couple years later, family commitments and a lack of pitching meant the end of hardball in Brock. Braves player/manager Matt Speir wasn’t ready to put a team on the field that wasn’t going to be able to get enough guys out to every game or produce high-enough qual-ity pitching to stay competitive in games. “The core group is getting into their late 30s and have family and other commitments. We were all just getting a little bit too busy to try to do everything,” Speir said on Tuesday. “We were always really short on pitching, and we just had zero this year. You can’t field a team with that. We probably could have strung a team together with that, but none of us wanted to do it and just be a joke. So it was like, ‘Wow, well it’s time to shut it down.’” The Braves have never made the final in FVBL play, but made it on two occasions to the semifinals. They may have had a hard time coming across pitching, but were consis-
tently a threat in the league. Byron Ismond has played with the Kinder-sley Raiders since 2007 and knew you could never take the Braves lineup lightly. “You never took any game (against Brock) for granted, that’s for sure,” said Ismond. “They always had their core of four or five guys that are really good hitters - and the oth-er guys aren’t slouches either - but you knew four or five of them could really hit the ball, so you were always playing with an edge.” You’ll still see many of the Braves getting out and taking their shots on the ice come winter. Many of the ball players play on the Braves play on a rec hockey team, and fre-quently encounter the Raiders guys on the ice. The Brock team and the Raiders players often join forces playing Canada’s national winter sport sometime during the winter “It’s a good group of guys, (the Raiders) get along well with them,” said Ismond. “And they join up with the old timers and us dur-ing the old-timers’ tournament, so we usually wind up playing together at some point in the year.” Naturally baseball was a sport the Braves were passionate about, but Speir says it’s the good times with all his friends he’ll miss most about having a team in Brock.
“Just probably good times with all my friends is the best thing that stood out to me. We were always semi-competitive and had al-ways had a good time,” he said. “It was a good run and we wish we could have kept it going, but it just didn’t work out.” Due to the Braves bowing out, the league has changed to three divisions from two - East - West and Central. In the East, there will be Elrose, Kyle and Beechy. In the Central Division there will be Rosetown, Eston and the Kindersley Klip-pers. In the West - Kindersley Raiders, Eato-nia Wheat Kings and Kindersley Midget Roy-als. Each team will now play 10 game, a home-and-away game against each team in their di-vision, then one game each against the other teams. The league begins Monday with the Kindersley Royals travelling to Rosetown and the Klippers visiting Eston. Tuesday will see the Kyle Yellow Jackets travel to Elrose to take on the Aces and the Eatonia Wheat Kings taking on the Raiders. On Wednesday, the Eston Ramblers will be in Kindersley to take on the Royals and on Thursday, the Beechy Breakers will travel to Elrose.
Brock Braves hang up their collective cleatsLeague moves to three divisions; action kicks off Monday
ANDREW MCCORMACK
of The Crossroads
The Sask-Alta Baseball League has been back in action for a week and a half, and four of the 10 teams remained undefeated as of Wednesday. The Burstall Braves are one of those teams, after taking down the Richmound Rockets 6-5 on May 12. The Braves lost in the playoffs last year to the Rockets, but were led to redemption by Kurtis Pidlisney, who went two for five with a home run and three runs scored. On Friday the 13th the Maple Creek Mo-hawks put up 13 runs as they won their first game of the season 13-4 against the debuting Medicine Hat Vipers. Hitting clean up, Lane Sanderson had three hits in four at bats, while scoring three times and stealing two bases. Saturday saw the Shaunavon Badgers take down the Climax Cardinals 4-1 in the Cardinals’ league debut. Kirk Amon had a pair of hits in two at bats, including his first home run of 2016. Justin Illerbrun turned in an effective start. He was credited with the win after throwing seven strikeouts over five shutout innings of one-hit ball, despite walk-ing five. Sunday wasn’t as good to Shaunavon as they were dealt an 8-3 loss by the Gull Lake Greyhounds. Playing the field, Illerbrun hit well in the leadoff spot, going two for three with a double. But raking a pair of doubles, scoring three times and recording a stolen base for the Greyhounds was Brendan Jones. Playing the second half of back-to-back days didn’t work for Gull Lake either, as the Cabri River Rats beat the Greyhounds 7-2 this past Monday. Ryan Svenson, Kade Behm and George Hudec (two doubles) had a pair of hits apiece backing Andrew Garland to a 1-0 record in Cabri’s first tilt of the year. As if the Mohawks didn’t flash enough of-fence with their 13 runs last Friday, Maple Creek came out of Climax with a 15-1 win Tuesday night. The other game saw the Rock-ets leave Black Sox territory with a 7-3 win. Scores for the Thursday-night game of the Vipers at the Braves were not available at the time of publication. The long weekend means there isn’t much on tap for the SABL this week. Monday has a rematch between the Badgers and Grey-hounds in Gull Lake as both teams try to im-
Sask-Alta Baseball League gets underway
prove their win-loss record to 2-1. And six teams are slated for action on Thursday, including Gull Lake at the Medi-cine Hat Cypress County Black Sox, Rich-mound at Burstall and Maple Creek travel-ling to Medicine Hat to take on the Vipers.
The Swift Current Yard Goats aren’t sched-uled to play their first SABL game (they were rained out last week) until May 23. Which means they join the Braves (1-0), River Rats (1-0) and Mohawks (2-0) as the teams yet to lose.
Kirk Amon of the Shaunavon Badgers tries to avoid a tag by Gull Lake Greyhounds catcher Joel Butts.
DAVID ZAMMIT/GULL LAKE ADVANCE
Don’t Shell Out a Lot of Cash... Use the Classifieds!
Box 1150, Kindersley, sK • (306) 463-4611
May 11th marked my first day of work writing for Ja-mac Publishing, where I’ll be typing letters on the key-board until they come together in a way that tells you how I see what’s going on sports-wise. Growing up in Sarnia, Ont., playing and following sports was always a passion of mine. And an opportunity to write about them for a living is something I am hon-oured to have a shot at. Playing baseball and hockey has been a constant throughout my life. A variety of teams in other sports, such as soccer, swimming and flag football, have also been bur-dened with my presence on their roster before. If you have any sports stories or ideas to share please call Andrew at 306-463-4611 or email at [email protected].
New sports reporter joins the Jamac Publishing team
New sports reporter Andrew McCormack is ready to take on the area sports scene.
