Woodstock Sentinel-Review Legends story for Monday's paper

June 3, 2007

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From: Darryl Smart <dsmart(at)bowesnet.com>



Subject: Sentinel-Review Legends story for Monday's paper


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By Hugo Rodrigues
STAFF WRITER
WOODSTOCK — The odds makers got it right this weekend at the
Legends
of Fastball Classic, as the Orillia Quaker Riversharks won the
final
2-0 against the Kitchener Hallman Twins.
“This played out probably pretty close to what the rankings were,”

team vice-president and assistant coach Paul Barnetson said at
the
end of the tournament.
The odds handed out with the tournament program also echoed the
end
result, giving the Riversharks 3-2 odds to win over the Twins’
3-1 odds.
The Riversharks jumped up to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the
first
inning, thanks to a two-run Ian Fehrman homer that also scored
Blair
Ezekiel.
“We wanted the jump and pressed for it and the guys executed,”

Barnetson said. “Then it was just a matter of keeping them off
the
board. Our defense played strong.”
It was a defensive battle from that point forward, with Orillia

getting only three more hits and Kitchener two. Several innings
were
only one walk away from three-up, three-down stanzas, with
Kitchener’s Todd Martin and Don Scott, and Orillia’s Frank Cox
and
Rob O’Brien both racking up a total of 15 strikeouts.
“It was a well-run tournament and we figured, we hoped it would
be
these two teams in the final,” Twins’ manager Doug Eidt said.
“We
were pretty well spent though, we played an 11-inning game this

morning and it’s our first time out… we played well from the
second
to the sixth.
“In another month, the result might have been different.”
Eidt credited Orillia’s youth over his team’s experience in this

tournament, given the Twins aforementioned 11-inning quarterfinal
— a
game that delayed play for the rest of the day, causing the Twins
to
head from their semifinal win over the Innerkip Eagles straight
into
the final.
Avid fans of the game will likely see these two teams face each
other
in future tournament finals, something both Eidt and Barnetson
said
they were looking forward to.
Kitchener will host the International Softball Congress world

tournament this August, and with the exception of one or two

weekends, the teams have registered for the same contests until
the
end of the season.
Host team Innerkip bowed out after their 7-2 loss against the
Twins,
which they too played back-to-back thanks to the Twins’ earlier
11-
inning quarterfinal against the Jarvis Merchants.
“We’re used to that and it was no effect,” coach Jeff Whetstone
said.
“It was a hot day, but we’ve got five guys who can throw. We
played
who is probably the third-place team in the world. They’ve got
six or
eight U.S. and Team Canada members.”
The Eagles had lost a tighter 5-4 divisional game against the
Twins
Saturday, and face the team throughout their league play in addition

to at tournaments such as the Legends.
This was the fourth year for the Legends of Fastball Classic

tournament, and the first year that every team participating
has come
from Ontario.


Darryl Smart
519-537-2341 ext. 258
dsmart(at)bowesnet.com
www.woodstocksentinelreview.com



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