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 My Site News: Stoney Creek Gators - Silver Medalists |
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Stoney Creek Gators - Silver Medalists
2004 Canadian Silver Medalists
Stoney Creek Gators, Stoney Creek, Ontario
Gators earn silver medal at Canadian Masters Fastball Championship
The Stoney Creek Gators Men's Masters Fastball Team earned the Silver medal at the 2004 Canadian Masters Fastball Championship. The tournament was held over the Labour Day weekend in Cobourg. The Gators earned a berth to the Canadian Championship by placing fourth at the Ontario Championship in July.
The Gators' first game of the Canadian Championship was against Cobourg, Ontario and the Gators came out swinging and recorded an 11-0 mercy in five innings. The winning pitcher was Dan Duemo, who allowed three hits over the five innings while striking out eight. Brian Prowse led the Gator attack at the plate going three for four with a single, double, home run and he had two RBI's and scored three runs. Cam Emerson also homered while Doug Levy and Joe Reeve each collected two hits.
The Gators' second game was against Colborne Rutherflo from Ontario. The Gators knew this would be a tough game as the Colborne team was very strong and they bolstered their roster for this tournament by picking up short stop, Chris Jones and pitcher Mike Crawford. Chris Jones has played for Canada's national team at the I.S.F. World Championships and Mike Crawford pitched for the Gold medal winning Team Canada at last year's Pan Am Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The Gators committed three errors in the first couple innings and were quickly down 4-0 after three innings. The Gators scored one run in the fourth inning and two more in the sixth inning on a Brian Prowse home run to close the gap to a one-run deficit. The Gators had the bases loaded in the seventh inning but could not bring home the tying run. The final score was 4-3 for Colborne. Rod Fevreau was tagged with the loss and Lance Winn, Henry Donders, Doug Levy, Cam Emerson, Don Chillman and Tim Thorne all added one hit a piece for the Gators.
In game three, the Gators came up against St. Mary's Moose from New Brunswick and squeaked out a 3-1 win. Pete Spitzig was the winning pitcher, allowing four hits while striking out three in six innings of work. Dan Duemo pitched the final inning and picked up the save. This was a tough game as the New Brunswick team had pitcher Gordie Gautreau on the mound. Gautreau is a fastball legend on the east coast of Canada. The Gators could only muster four hits off Gautreau but made the most of the four hits by scoring three runs. Joe Reeve, Brian Prowse, Lance Winn and Doug Levy each collected hits for Stoney Creek.
The Gators ended the round-robin portion of the tournament as the second-place team in their pool and would start the playoff round facing the first-place team from the other pool. The Waterloo Classics went undefeated to win their pool and would be favoured by most against the Gators.
The Gators rode the pitching arm of Dan Duemo to a 3-1 win over Waterloo. Duemo pitched a neat little two-hitter with nine strike outs for the win. Brian French led the Gators' hitters going two for three. Other Gators to collect hits were Lance Winn, Doug Levy, Brian Prowse, Joe Reeve, Cam Emerson, and Tim Thorne. With this win the Gators were guaranteed at least Bronze medals and would have two lives in the playoff round.
Game five saw the Gators face off against Colborne Rutherflo for the second time during this tournament. Once again Colborne came away with a win, this time by the score of 1-0 win. This Colborne team had their ace pitcher Wayne Wells throwing since he just arrived back from the Canadian Senior/Open Men's Championship in Ste. Croix, Nova Scotia. Wells is generally regarded as one of the best master's aged pitchers in the World. Pete Spitzig took the loss for the Gators but matched Wells pitch for pitch in the classic pitchers dual.
Spitzig allowed five hits while the Gators were able to scratch out four hits off Wayne Wells. Doug Levy had two of the Gators' hits while Henry Donders and Cam Emerson had the other hits.
Game six saw the Gators take on the Alvinston Indians from Ontario. The loser would get Bronze with the winner playing Colborne for gold. Once again the Gators were the underdog facing the Alvinston team who had won the Ontario Championship back in July in convincing fashion.
The Gators got out to an early 1-0 lead after two innings only to see Alvinston come back with three runs of their own in the fourth inning for a 3-1 lead which they held until the seventh. inning. Going into the last inning, Gators' Coach Dave Birnie told the tournament convener to get the Bronze medals ready to present to Alvinston as he guaranteed that his Gators team would come back in the last inning and win the game. Birnie was only partly right as the Gators scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to tie the game and force extra innings. Birnie's guarantee came true in the eighth inning as the Gators held Alvinston from scoring and then scored the winning run in the bottom of the inning, using the international tiebreaker rule. Dan Duemo was the wining pitcher as he tossed a brilliant game against a fierce hitting Alvinston team. Duemo pitched a complete game, striking out six and allowing five hits over eight innings. Doug Charlton took the loss for Alvinston. The Gators collected hits from Lance Winn, Joe Reeve, Cam Emerson, Tim Thorne, Brian French and Dave Benallick.
Game seven saw the Gators take on Colborne Rutherflo for the third time in the tournament. Another classic battle between the two best teams in Canada saw Colborne squeak out another 1-0 victory giving Colborne the Canadian Championship and the Stoney Creek Gators the Silver medal.
This was one of the best master's fastball games ever played and the fans witnessed an awesome pitching dual between Mike Crawford of Colborne and Rod Fevreau of Stoney Creek. Crawford gave up two hits to the Gators while Colborne had three hits off Fevreau. Fastball just doesn't get any better then this championship game which was played at an extremely high level between two classy teams. Brian Prowse and Tim Thorne each collected one hit for the Gators.
Three players from the Gators were selected as tournament all-stars. Brian Prowse was named First Team All Canadian, while Doug Levy and Dan Duemo were selected as Second Team All Canadian.
The Gators' pitching staff really rose to the occasion for this tournament and kept the Gators in every single game and gave the Gators a chance to win every game. Pitchers, Pete Spitzig, Rod Fevreau and Dan Duemo were simply awesome and played a huge role in helping the Gators earn their Silver medals.
At the conclusion of the tournament, Gators Coach Dave Birnie left his spikes on first base, which is a symbolic gesture of his retirement from the game of fastball. Birnie retires having guided his Gators to the 2002 Ontario and Eastern Canadian Championships, as well as silver medalists at the 2004 Canadian Masters Fastball Championship.
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