Mounties Defence BAD TO THE BONE!

The Cloverdale Spurs gained a hard fought victory coming into Nanaimo Park and defeating the Mounties by a 3 - 2 score.  It was a game where both pitchers were good and the hits were few and far between but the Spurs were the better defensive team and made more plays than the Mounties including throwing out 2 Mountie base runners in the 7th Inning.  Congrats to the aggressive Spurs who were full value for the victory and the better team certainly won on this day.

The Spurs did as expected and put the ball in play in the first inning and the Mounties infield looked like they were on foreign soil  making 3 errors on ground balls.  Throw in a pass ball and the Mounties were lucky to get out of the inning only down by 1 run.

On the flip side of the coin the Spurs infield was flawless making all the routine plays plus a couple of great ones,  combined with the strong pitching from their starter Poirer they had a great recipe for keeping the Mounties off the board.  The Spurs scored another run in the 3rd when their batter doubled and then scored on a single after he was moved to 3rd after the Mountie battery had trouble getting the ball from home back to the pitchers glove. 

The Spurs added the winning run in the 5th when the first Spurs batter reached on error after the Mountie infield once again had trouble making a ground ball out.  The Mounties needing some help on defence finally got it, but this time it came form an unexpected source and they were the recipiants of an erroneous call, when the Spurs singled into centre field and the ball bounced into Kingsburys glove.  The umpire thinking that Kingsbury caught the ball called the Spurs batter out on a catch as he was rounding first and heading to 2nd.  The surprised Spurs batter eased up and sauntered into 2nd thinking he was out.  Kingsbury threw the ball to 2nd and the runner was tagged out.  It was an ugly situation as Spurs coaches were not to happy but after a brief conversation with the umpire the Spurs coaches walked away with a valuable run, and the Mounties took the out.

Although the Mounties had runners on in 3 of the first 5 innings they were only able to generate 2 hits against the Spurs starter Poirer who left the game after 5 innings.  The Mounties were able to get on the board in the 6th inning when with 1 out Younan, Tintero, and Lindeman put together consecutive singles and  the Mounties were right back In the game with men on 2nd and 3rd, down 2 runs, with 1 out.  The next batter hit to shortstop and a costly base running error occurred when the Mountie runner interfered with the Spurs shortstop and was called out.  Instead of two runners still in scoring position the Mounties now had runners on 1st and 3rd.  Quito came in to pinch hit and blooped a hit into shallow centrefield where the Spurs shortstop tried to make a tough catch but was unable to come up with the ball.  The Mounties only scored 1 run on the play.  The Mounties now had runners at 2nd and 3rd but the Spurs reliever was able to strike out the next Mountie batter.

With the score now 3 - 2 the Mounties had a bit of momentum and Ensing came in to relieve Lee who had a strong outing for the Mounties going 6 innings giving up 1 earned run while giving up 3 hits.  Ensing did his job striking out the side and giving the Mounties a chance to come back in the bottom of the 7th.

Currie led off the inning with a single, and the Mounties were not able to execute a sac bunt.  Coach Pawlick tried to force the issue and the Spurs catcher made his decision look bad when he threw out Currie stealing into 2nd base.  With 2 out Ensing walked keeping the Mountie hopes alive but those hopes were short lived when he was thrown out, to end the game trying to steal 2nd base.  Kudos to the Cloverdale catcher who made two fine throws when the game was on the line.

The Mounties outhit the Spurs 6 to 3 on the evening but as everyone knows offence is exciting but boring good old hardwork defence wins games.  The Spurs won the game and also the error department category as they only committing 2 errors while the Mounties counted 7. 

It was a tough loss for the Mounties but when they look back at the game they will realize that there were many opportunities throughout the contest that could have changed the outcome of the game.  On most nights the Mounties take advantage of those opportunities tonight it didn't happen for them.  As usual the Mounties played hard, fought hard, and never gave up forcing the issue until the final out.