Rosalind pounds way to Tri-Hosted Championship
Posted June 11, 2013
The Battle River League’s Rosalind Athletics pounded the ball around and cruised through three straight games en route to the tournament championship in the first-ever, and maybe last Tri-Hosted Powerline Baseball League Tournament hosted in Holden, Round Hill and concluding in Armena.
On Saturday, Rosalind mercied both the Camrose Roadrunners and the Armena Royals in six innings to win the Round Hill division. The Roadrunners then dealt two of their common Royal pickups to a short-handed crew for the night-cap and for some of the locals in attendance they witnessed a masterpiece performance from both young and old hurlers.
Nolan Miller for Camrose went nine strong, and surprisingly had an elder-statesman on the sunset of his PBL career going toe-to-toe with him in Clark Banack.
Tied 2-2 the teams headed to the eighth inning where Camrose notched a fielder’s choice RBI with two outs to seemingly take the game. But back-to-back line drive hits by Mark Lawson and Eldon Banack tied the game to send it to the ninth where eventually the “Carmena” Royals, as Lucas Banack coined them, walked off the gracious hosts. The teams then enjoyed a delicious steak fry put on by the Elks.
In the Holden Division, details are a bit sketchy, but it was pitcher’s duals and low-scoring games all day long. Unfortunately, it was the ill-fated 1-1 records (The downside round robins) for all three teams with Holden losing to Leduc 2-0 but beating East Park 7-4, while the Orioles would upset Leduc 4-1. Runs for and against coin flip bit Leduc and pit them against a hungry Roadrunner team still seething from the donation they offered Armena the night before.
With both teams stumbling in, they squared off in an exciting finale once the grounds crew soaked up the wet infield with flour and the boys sweated out the booze, with the Roadrunners’ Tim MacTavish walking off the Milleteers with an RBI single in the seventh. The Royals, now with 10 guys, rope-a-doped the young bucks from East Park and mounted a late surge to erase a 4-0 deficit and win 12-4 on the backs of the mid-30-year-old Wes Wilson who pitched a complete game for the first time… in two decades.
Rosalind and Holden looked poised for an old fashioned farmers fracas, but it was Rosalind who continued to pound the depth-starters of PBL as Dylan Boyko got the ball. The Blue Jays had a rough day defensively as the A’s clipped the Jays 9-4 for the victory on the backs of junk baller Steve Enright who kept the Jays on their toes all day at the plate.
Final Standings
- Rosalind: 3-0 (A Winner)
- Armena: 2-1 (B Winner)
- Camrose: 1-2 (C Winner)
- Holden: 1-2
- East Park: 1-2
- Leduc: 1-2
