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Powell River baseball team comes close at provincials

Team loses heartbreaker to powerhouse from Campbell River in semi-final
Powell River’s Dignan Winmill
GRAND SLAM: Powell River’s Dignan Winmill [left] is met by teammates at home plate after launching a grand slam home run against Coquitlam/Port Moody at the recent Baseball BC provincial championships. After striking out in two previous plate appearances, Winmill hit the ball out of the park with two strikes against him. Powell River won the game 17-12. Jennifer Frost photo

For a team thrown together for the summer, Powell River’s U15 baseball team just missed playing in the Baseball BC provincial championship game by one run.

The recent 10-team tournament in Nanaimo was played the way baseball is meant to be, with comebacks, one run wins, strong pitching, bats that came alive and some great defence, according to coach Scott Mastrodonato. And it would not be baseball without a questionable call from a home plate umpire, he said.

In Powell River’s first game against South Burnaby, the team’s bats were quiet the whole game.

“We were down 7-2 going into the seventh,” said Mastrodonato. “In our final at bat they put in their closer and our bats came alive. We tied it up and left two stranded going into the bottom of the seventh.”

South Burnaby had runners on second and third base in the bottom of the seventh. Powell River intentionally walked the next batter to load the bases and force the out, but then a controversial call led to the winning run for Burnaby.

“The ump had the gall to call a catcher's balk; have you ever heard of a catcher's balk?” said Mastrodonato.

Powell River then faced a must-win game against Nanaimo to stay in contention for a semi-final berth and won 9-5.

In its third game, Powell River lost 9-8 to Stuart Channel.

Powell River’s fate came down to the fourth and final game of the round robin against Coquitlam/Port Moody. Strong batting and defence led the team to a 17-12 win.

“We should have won about 12-1,” said Mastrodonato. “We got into the fifth inning up a whole bunch but they scored enough runs to keep the game alive and then it became a drawn-out pitching battle. I was trying to get the win and also save pitching arms for the playoff game.”

Powell River was one of three teams that finished the round robin with records of two wins and two losses, forcing a tie-breaker, which favoured Powell River and sent the team to the semi-final game against the tournament powerhouse from Campbell River.

Mastrodonato said his players knew they were the underdog and fell behind 6-1 after the first inning before fighting back to lead 8-7 in the fifth.

“We battled back; we had great pitching, our defence came alive, our bats were there and we were super aggressive on the base paths,” said the coach. “We got under their skin and started producing runs and it was just a back and forth game the whole way. They eked out two runs to get a 9-8 lead and we couldn't drum up anything in our last at bat.”

Mastrodonato said the team was thrilled by the experience.

“The kids came together and we had a really good tournament,” he added. “We had some moments where we wished we'd played a little bit better defensively. Like any baseball team there's going to be mistakes but there was also some great plays and awesome hits.”