POS loses in Final of SPO tourney in Oshawa

Having got their Provincial qualifier for London in last month’s SPO tourney, POS was looking to get some more practice in with the 2nd qualifier last weekend.  The weather forecast was hot and sunny all weekend which was a change to the previous 2 wet tourneys POS had played in.  To start the Saturday games POS took on a familiar rival in the Silverbacks on diamond #6 at 8:30am.  POS jumped out to an early lead and with solid defense cruised to an 11-4 win.  The 2nd game was against The Bulldogs at 11:00am on #2 and after seeing the hitting by The Bulldogs through the order POS decided to try the Xtreme Rover outfield plan and it messed with the hitters allowing only 3 runs to be scored while POS put up 16 for the win.  The 3rd game on Saturday had the two 2-0 teams playing at 2:45pm on #2 to determine who will be the #1 seed heading into Sunday’s elimination games.  POS was taking on the Rats who had easily won their first 2 games scoring 20+ runs in each game.  The game became heated at times with the Rats not liking the game chatter by Todd behind the plate and after a few hits by POS up the middle the Rats pitcher accused POS for intentionally hitting it there.  That brought a confrontation at home plate the following inning as the Rats pitcher called his shot to hit it back up the middle while standing between Todd and Jeff in the batter’s box…he did hit it back to Hatt on the mound with 2 or 3 hops which was easily handled for the out.  The final was 7-3 for the Rats as they had one better inning than POS.

Sunday’s elimination games had POS taking on the 3rd place team (Triple Threat) from the other group who had a familiar face with Josh playing LF…many of the POS players hadn’t seen Josh since he played in Uxbridge with them last year.  The 9:00am game on #2 had POS continue with some timely hits and solid defense to take this one by a score of 16-4.  The semi-final game at 11:45am on #1 had POS taking on The Dodgers who were the 1st place finisher in the other group going 3-0 on Saturday.  During the early innings POS capitalized on some defensive mishaps by The Dodgers and took this one by a score of 15-5.  So, the final was set with POS taking on the Rats again at 2:15pm on #2 as they cruised to the final with mercy wins in both their Sunday games.  Not sure what both teams expected in this one following the heated match from Saturday but cooler heads prevailed and it was another low scoring game between the 2 teams.  POS turned a triple play in the bottom of the 6th which unfortunately wasn’t enough to ignite the offense in the top of the 7th for the comeback as POS lost to the Rats by a score of 6-3. 

POS finished the weekend with a 4-2 record, 64 runs for and 29 runs against.  Next up for SPO tourneys and POS will be the Provincials in London on August 16-18.  Prior to that POS will have one final tune-up in the Diamond Duster at the end of July in Uxbridge.

POS Roster for the Tournament:

George Douma (A’s) – Coach/Sub

Todd Boisvert (Greenthumb)

David Hatt (Greenthumb)

Bob Peppler (Storm)

Joey Pilkey (Storm)

Cas Litwin (Falcons)

Sean Dunn (Falcons)

Jeff Hutchinson (Bradley Motors Shifters)

Derek Ackford (Xtreme Contracting)

Mike Anderson (Xtreme Contracting)

Duncan McDonald (St. Louis Devils)

Ryan Rayner (St. Louis Devils)

Mark Brown (not in WMSPL)