POS takes it all in Uxbridge

POS was looking to improve on their runner-up finish in Scarborough at the beginning of June and headed to Uxbridge to play in the 19^th Annual NSA Diamond Duster Tournament.  Playing in the REC “E” Division POS started the tourney with a win on Friday night at the Arena against an Uxbridge team (Victorious Secrets) scoring 10 runs in the top of the 7^th to put this game out of reach and take it 26-9. 

Saturday at noon was on an interesting diamond (Goodwood#1) with trees, rock, road, and light standards in the OF where POS took on a team from Ajax (Killer Instincts) and again put this one out of reach in the top of the 7^th scoring 7 runs to take this one 18-9.  The 4:40 game on Saturday was back at HQ against another local Uxbridge team (Rookies) where we should’ve been keeping track of K’s as Al must have K’d at least 7 Rookies in the game as POS took this one in convincing fashion 15-4.  The late game on Saturday was based on standings within Pod A and with 2 teams being tied 3-0 POS had the run differential advantage (+37) over The Replacements (+35) from Oshawa heading into the 1vs2 matchup to determine the winner of Pod A.  The 7:55 game at HQ was an exciting back and forth battle between POS and The Replacements which saw POS come out on top 16-13.  At the end of the Round Robin POS was 4-0 with a +40 which gave them the edge over another 4-0 team in Pod C (Silverbacks) who were +30.  This gave POS the #1 seed out of the 18 teams heading into Sunday’s elimination games.

Sunday’s 11:05 game at HQ had POS taking on the winner of the 16vs17 game who ended up being the Rookies again and having to play back-to-back games proved to be too much for the Rookies as POS took this one easily 15-3 after a 5 inning mercy. The 1:15 game back at the Arena saw POS taking on the #9 seed Team Sox from Oshawa and in a very close game POS hung on to take this one 9-7 stranding the tying run on 2^nd in the bottom of the 7^th.  The semi-final game, 4:30 at the Arena saw a return of the Killer Instincts who were seeded 12^th but had knocked off the 5^th and 4^th seeds for the rematch against POS.  The rest between games for POS was nice to have but the bats also seemed to be continuing their rest into the game as POS found themselves down 7-2 heading into the top of the 7^th.  With most of the POS players scheduled to play in the league games at 6:30 there were thoughts about making it back in time for those games…however, queue the comeback and with some timely hits POS rallied to score 5 runs to tie the game heading into the bottom of the 7^th.  POS shutdown the Sox in the bottom of the 7^th and headed to extra innings with Derek starting at 2^nd base with the 1 out.  Jeremy singled to right and Derek scored easily for POS to take the lead by 1 run.  The bottom of the 8^th saw the Sox runner at 2^nd base make a running mistake on a grounder to Joey at SS which caused him to be tagged out and with 2 out they had another hit but ended the game with a flyout to Dave in RF.  POS was heading to the finals with the dramatic come from behind extra inning 8-7 win…and emails back to the teams in Whitby letting them know that they would not be back in time for those 6:30 games.  The 6:40 Finals at HQ had POS taking on The Dillos (#6 seed) from Scarborough who had knocked off the #3 seed (The Replacements) by a default in the quarters and the #2 seed (Silverbacks) 7-5 in their semis.  The Dillos were experiencing their first finals and as POS jumped out to an early lead it proved to be too much for The Dillos to mount a comeback as timely hits, great base running and defense by POS allowed them to take this one 13-4 and become the 2012 Diamond Duster REC E Champs going a perfect 8-0.  It was a great weekend had by all and POS is looking forward to the next tourney in August.  

A summary of the games:

Friday, 9:30pm, Arena, POS-26 vs Victorious Secrets-9
Saturday, 12:20pm, Goodwood#1, POS-18 vs Killer Instincts-9
Saturday, 4:40pm, HQ W, POS-15 vs Rookies-4
Saturday, 7:55pm, HQ W, POS-16, The Replacements-13
Sunday, 11:05am, HQ E, POS-15 vs Rookies-3
Sunday, 1:15pm, Arena, POS-9 vs Team Sox-7
Sunday, 4:30pm, Arena, POS-8 vs Killer Instincts-7  (8 innings)
Sunday, 6:40pm, HQ E, POS-13 vs The Dillos-4

POS Roster for the Tournament:

Wayne Cosby (Greenthumb/Woodland) – Coach/Sub

George Douma (A’s) – Coach/Sub

Todd Boisvert (Greenthumb/Woodland)

Jeremy Gardiner (Greenthumb/Woodland)

David Hatt (Greenthumb/Woodland)

Dave Watkins (Greenthumb/Woodland)

Al Stanfield (Storm)

Bob Peppler (Storm)

Joey Pilkey (Storm)

Ashley Teeter (Falcons)

Cas Litwin (Falcons)

Sean Dunn (Falcons)

Derek Ackford (Xtreme Contracting)

Josh Mitchell (not in WMSPL…yet)