NS team settles for silver

August 9, 2010

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N.S. team settles for silver
Napanee downs Murphy’s in Canadian junior fast-pitch final
By MONTY MOSHER Sports Reporter

 
The Murphy’s Fish and Chips Eagles will have to content themselves with a silver medal for a second straight year.
 
The Nova Scotia representatives dug an early hole in a 6-1 loss to the Napanee (Ont.) Express in Sunday’s Canadian junior men’s fast-pitch final before an estimated 3,000 fans in St. Croix, Hants County.
Napanee had to win twice Sunday and took care of business 5-1 in a morning semifinal against the Owen Sound Selects.
 
Joran Graham pitched the win, his second complete-game victory of the day.. Nova Scotia helped him by leaving 10 runners on base.
Graham allowed six hits and fanned seven.
 
The Eagles were disconsolate. They dragged their feet to a post-game photo shoot and drifted back to their dugout afterwards in a silent stupor.
"It was the gold medal we were after and we didn’t get it," Nova Scotia pitcher Cory Avery, part of both runner-up teams, said before trailing off. Avery pitched 4 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.
The mood was anything but sombre on the Napanee side. They got even for a 9-1 playoff drubbing against Nova Scotia on Saturday.
 
"We were pretty confident going into today," said Graham. "It was a rough game yesterday with the umps calling illegal pitches and all that. We just bounced back. We came hard the first game and the second game was for the gold medal and we got on top early and just went with it.
 
"We wanted these guys, big time. We wanted to come back and beat them, for sure."
Napanee made a fast start against Nova Scotia starter Tyson Barkman, an import from B.C. Joel Langford doubled just inside the left-field line to open the game and came around on Dylan Cunningham’s arching two-run home run to right.
 
The Express got some breathing room with a four-run rally in the third that came with two outs. Kyle Lloyd, named the playoff MVP, had a two-run bloop double that raised chalk on the right-field line and Ryan Mills followed with a two-run blast to left to chase Barkman in favour of Avery.
 
The Eagles rallied for a run in the third on Avery’s RBI single. It could have been a much bigger inning before his brother Patrick lined out to left with the bases loaded and two out.
Lloyd made a pair of highlight-reel plays at shortstop in the seventh as the Express rolled to gold.
 
No Nova Scotia junior men’s team has won gold since Halifax Fisherman’s Market and Halifax Midtown went back-to-back in 1982-83.
 
In the semifinal Sunday morning, Napanee got an early two-run homer from Lloyd and a pinch-hit three-run shot from Dan Burnham to down their provincial rivals.
 
Many of the Nova Scotia players will get another chance later this month when they form the nucleus of a team along with senior vets Tim Macumber, Kevin Harvey and Gerald Muizelaar for the Canadian senior nationals in Charlottetown.

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