2019 REGULAR SEASON COMES TO AN END!
The final weekend of the 2019 regular season was a festive one! With Merle hosting a pre-game hangout before they return to the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes and Garrison Creek Glimmerite Meg Wright hosting a game-time birthday hang, there was plenty of lovely people and memories to celebrate. The weather was perfect for ball with mild humidity and a cool breeze blowing out to the outfield.
There was only one last question to solve before the playoffs! Would the Humber River Haze or the Credit River Care Bears finish in 2nd place to claim home field advantage for the first round of the playoffs? It would take 2 whole games to solve this question.
In the opening game, the Credit River Care Bears hoped to outshine the Glimmer with rainbows, shamrocks, and lucky horseshoes, while Garrison Creek sought to get intergalactic in their warm up for the first round of the playoffs. In the evening matchup, the first place Rouge River Raccoons hoped to have a pre-playoff appetizer filled with smoky Haze, while the Humber River squad hoped to set off smoke signals to flag their arrival into the playoffs!
If you wanna know the results…
READ MORE TO FIND OUT!
Photo Credit: Craig Fortier 🙂
CREDIT RIVER CARE BEARS @ GARRISON CREEK GLIMMER
By Craig Fortier, Credit River Care Bears
There was magic in the air as the Care Bears and Glimmer took the field to celebrate the fantastical, the interstellar, the magical, the infinite game we call baseball. After a long season of absences, the Glimmer lineup was finally filled with stars and the Care Bears brought with them their regular cast of loveable cubbies.
In the first inning, a surprise appearance from Hobbly Bear (aka Craig Fortier) stunned the Glimmer with a burst of rainbows to right centre field and the elite speed of Companion Bear (aka Jenny Chan) rounding the bases for a home run! The ursus started things off with some serious heart glitter and quickly went up 8-0. Paddling Bear (aka Alie Hermanutz), MinneapolaBear (aka Merle Davis Matthews), and Big Kidd Bear (Michelle Kidd) all sprung into action to help the cuddly ones take their lead.
The Glimmer weren’t about to get outshined with home field advantage and they sent comets of their own out in the 2nd inning. The constellation of Johann Juarez, Paulina Rousseau, Ryan Hayes, and Colin Hastings powered the Glimmer in the bottom half with doubles and runs aplenty! Starstruck Kaleigh MB powered a single and was brought home by the electromagnetic field known as Krysta Williams and Luke Fox! Kaleigh fooling Wobbly Bear (aka Terrance Luscombe) with a slick ball that T had to chase from short-stop all the way to the first base line as it slid, orbited, and dipped away from the otherwise sure-handed fielder’s mitt.
At the end of two innings, the score was 8-5 Credit River. The Bears bounded in the 3rd and 4th innings to add to their lead with some stunning runs by Work-Hard-Play-Hard Bear (aka Victoria Barnett), Split Season Bear (aka Laura Pin) and Returned Home Bear (aka Sarah Weinberger). Bounding Bear (aka Jarl Gardner) made one of the great outfield catches of the season floating through the tundra to swat the salmon out of the icy sky like his polar bear idols. The score was 10-5 entering the bottom of the 4th!
It was Galaxy time for the Glimmer though, as they powered for 5 runs in the bottom of the 4th to tie the game thanks to some supersonic speed from Devin Clancy and Annelies Cooper and key lightning strikes off the bats of Colin Hayes and Kari Pederson!
In the final inning, the Care Bears had scored 3 runs and were looking for more when Devin Clancy opened a black hole to eat up a Victoria Barnett line drive and end the magical rainbow of care. In the bottom half of the inning, the Glimmer loaded the bases with no outs and a Johann Juarez single scored 2 to make the score 13-12. Paulina Rousseau’s single scored Annelies Cooper to tie the game 13-13. And it was Ryan Hayes final epic blast who scored Johann and sealed the victory for the stars of Glimmer!
Final score Credit River 13 – Garrison Creek 14
HUMBER RIVER HAZE @ ROUGE RIVER RACCOONS
By Craig Fortier, Credit River Care Bears
And so, with the Credit River Care Bear loss, Humber River needed either a win or a loss by less than 4 runs to secure 2nd place. This was still a daunting challenge with the hungry procyons sniffing trash around their home turf.
SkyDome was filled with lovely fans and by the second game, the lone heckling man had found some other place to provide his rude opinions. And so love reigned supreme with the adorable Trash Pandas and the light as air Haze floating to the top of the diamond.
The Raccoons as has become their trademark came out swatting! Led by Kate Uffelman and Susannah Mulvale’s 4 hits a piece, Rouge River circled the bases with wild abandon. The game saw Phill Morgan and Stu Schussler launch two mammoth homeruns that would have made the Don River Mastodons of 2017 very proud. But the Haze weren’t going to put up the SOS so soon and they returned the fire power with blasts from Alex Brant, Niloo Golkar and Umar Saeed. After 2 inning Rouge led 10-3.
The Raccoons played some stellar defence with left-paw Darren Puscas cleaning up the garbage at short-stop and fan favourite Sena Hussain making some nifty picks at first base. Robin Smillie of the Haze was not daunted and in the third inning jumped on the first pitch and landed it softly in the long-summer grass. Oskar Eliashevsky pushed Robin to second, Brianna Greaves, flicked her over to third and then Samira Banihashemi (who also played a fire first base) stung the ball for a smoking run!
After 3 innings the Raccoons had extended their lead 13-5, but the Haze caught a backdraft and narrowed the score in the 4th with Adam Dirks turning the fog machine up to 10 with excellent pitching and Sarah Peek slinging singles like an ice cream parlour on a hot day. It was 13-9 until the Raccoons pulled away thanks to some scrapping from Shelagh Pizey-Allen and David Ravensbergen who were both plated by the swat of loveable care bear Victoria Barnett. The score was 15-9 going into what was believed to be the last inning….but then magic happened. In 4 minutes both teams went 3 up 3 down to finish the fifth and the Haze then were foiled by the Raccoons in the 6th who closed the lid on the game as time was set to expire.
With the 15-9 loss, Humber River finally slid into the 3rd position for the season and gave Credit the 2nd place spot. The two teams will face off in the first round of the playoffs and the Raccoons will await the winner of Don vs. Garrison in Week 2!
Final score Humber River 9 – Rouge River 15
See playoff 2019 primer here
See the game box scores here
See player stats here
See league standings here
See all-time career statistics file (updated for July 8 2019) here
MILESTONES
Credit River
Laura Pin– becomes 43rd player in league history to reach 60 career hits!
Merle Davis Matthews– becomes 15th player in league history to reach 120 career hits!
Terrance Luscombe– becomes 6th player in league history to reach 40 career doubles!
Jenny Chan– currently ranks 5th in career hits with 172!
Jarl Gardner– becomes 5th player in league history to reach 125 career runs scored!
Robyn Letson– becomes 22nd player in league history to reach 105 career hits!
Victoria Barnett– currently ranks 3rd on the single season at-bats list with 77 this season! 8 away from Darren Puscas’ 85 at-bat single season record set in 2017!
Alie Hermanutz– becomes 60th player in league history to reach 20 career runs scored!
Michelle Kidd– currently ranks 74th on the all-time list with 11 career runs batted in!
Craig Fortier – becomes 3rd player in league history to reach 160 career singles!
Sarah Weinberger– currently ranks 63rd on the all-time list with 58 career at-bats!
Don River
No Don Players Played this Week.
Humber River
Samira Banishashemi- currently ranks 60th on the all-time list with 19 career runs scored!
Adam Dirks – currently tied for 39th on the all-time list with 6 career doubles!
Sarah Peek – currently tied for 85th on the all-time list with 19 career hits!
Alex Brant – currently tied for 33rd on the all-time list with 7 career doubles!
Niloo Golkar- currently tied for 44th on the all-time list with 5 career doubles!
Umar Saeed – see oddities below!
Robin Smillie – currently tied for 34th on the all-time list with 118 career at-bats!
Oskar Eliashevsky – becomes the 84th player in league history to reach 35 career at-bats!
Brianna Greaves – currently tied for 45th on the all-time list with 58 career hits!
Rouge River
Shelagh Pizey Allen – currently tied for 45th on the all-time list with 93 career at-bats!
Phill Morgan – currently tied for 11th on the all-time list with 7 career home runs!
Sena Hussain – becomes 75th player in league history to reach 40 career at-bats!
Susannah Mulvale- currently tied for 45th on the all-time list with 41 career singles!
Stuart Schussler- currently tied for 9th on the all-time list with 8 career home runs!
Kate Uffelman- currently ranks 32nd on the all-time list with 77 career hits!
Darren Puscas – becomes 7th player in league history to reach 40 career doubles!
David Ravensbergen – currently tied for 39th on the all-time list with 6 career doubles!
Garrison Creek
Devin Clancy – becomes the 7th player in league history to reach 145 career singles!
Annelies Cooper – becomes the 5th player in league history to reach 150 career singles!
Ryan Hayes – becomes the 2nd player in league history to reach 180 career runs scored!
Paulina Rousseau – currently ranks 92nd on the all-time list with 31 career at-bats!
Kari Pederson – becomes 84th player in league history to reach 20 career hits!
Colin Hastings – see oddities below!
Kaleigh MacGregor-Bales – becomes 61st player in league history to reach 35 career hits (36)!
Luke Fox – currently tied for 68th on the all-time list with 28 career hits!
Krysta Williams – becomes 70th player in league history to reach 45 career at-bats (46)!
Johann Juarez – with 199 career runs batted in, ranks 3rd on the all-time list and is 1 rbi shy of the 200 milestone!
SUBS
No subs this week!
ODDITIES
TRIPLE DOUBLE
Umar Saeed (Humber River) is currently tied for 15th on the all-time list with 22 career doubles and 15th on the all-time list with 7 career triples. Umar currently has 9 doubles and 2 triples this season making him the only player with more extra base hits (11) than singles (7).
QUARTER ROLLS
Colin Hastings (Garrison Creek) currently ranks 2nd on the all-time list with 25 career triples and 5th on the all-time list with 25 career home runs!