Lucas Punkari
This year’s Rainy River District Fastball League championship was a little bit different for the Sight & Sound Wolves.
Despite the fact they had won the last two crowns, the Fort Frances-based squad was considered the underdogs going into the final given Beef’s Warriors had run roughshod over the entire league during the regular season and into the playoffs.
But when the final out was recorded at the VanJura here last Tuesday night, it was the Wolves who again were the best team in the RRDFL thanks to a 14-2 thrashing of the Warriors.
“We wanted to win this one really bad,” Wolves’ catcher Grant Swire smiled after the game.
“It’s been a long time since I had butterflies in my stomach going into a ball game, and that’s exactly how I felt going into this game,” he added.
“So to be able to win this game was really nice.”
The Wolves, who defeated the Rainy River Royals in the semi-final to advance, needed to beat the Warriors twice in the double-elimination playoffs to capture the title.
In their first meeting back on Aug. 25, Sight & Sound erased an early 6-1 early deficit en route to a 9-8 triumph to force a second-and-deciding game last Tuesday.
“I think coming back on Thursday really changed the whole series for us,” Swire admitted.
“We got that confidence boost on our side and I think that the loss might have put a little bit of doubt in their minds,” he reasoned.
The teams had to wait nearly 90 minutes before they took to the field last Tuesday as a brief but heavy rain shower soaked the field and led to both teams working together to clear water off the diamond.
Once the game got underway, it was the Wolves who jumped out to an early 5-0 lead—sparked by Marcel Pagee’s grand slam in the bottom of the second inning.
“[Warriors’ pitcher] Sheldon [Kelly] just threw a knuckle ball that just didn’t do anything and ended up on the outside part of the plate,” Pagee recalled.
“I honestly didn’t think that the ball would have enough to get out of the park and I was just hoping for the ball to just hit the fence at least.
“Luckily, though, it went over and it was good boost for the boys because they just continued to hit the ball,” he added.
Kevin Gemmell belted a solo shot off Wolves’ hurler Bob Andy in the top of third to put the Warriors on the scoreboard, but Sight & Sound came right back in the bottom half with a two-run homer by Swire.
“Sheldon had me in a 0-2 count, which was the same situation that I was in when I struck out in the first inning,” Swire recalled.
“He threw me one right down the heart of the plate and this time I was waiting for it, and I was just able to make a nice swing.
“I wasn’t trying to hit the ball out of the park, I was just trying to make contact with the ball,” Swire stressed.
“But sometimes when you make good contact, that is what happens.”
Swire’s homer marked the beginning of a disastrous half-inning for the Warriors, who made some costly fielding errors to help the Wolves explode for seven runs in all to lead 12-1.
“They are a very good squad, and I think the only difference between us and them is that we’ve got a little more experience when it comes to being under pressure or down a few runs,” Pagee said of the first-year Warriors.
“They ended up making a couple of errors there, and they were saying afterwards that things just snowballed for them from there.
“And those kinds of things just take the wings out of your sails,” Pagee noted.
“We’ve been around that situation before and we have still found a way to pull it off, and I’m sure for the younger guys they will learn from this,” he added.
“We all played a good game, but we just kind of let ourselves down just because of one inning,” sighed Kelly.
“But we all tried our best out there and even though things may not have gone our way tonight, we all kept on pushing,” he stressed.
Mike Wilson added a solo shot for the Warriors in the top of the fifth, but by then the damage already had been done to the regular-season champs.
They gave up another two runs in bottom of the sixth inning to round out the scoring.
For members of the Wolves, this year’s title might have been the most cherished of the three-straight they’ve won.
“They [Beef’s Warriors] were gunning for us this year and they put together a really solid team,” Swire noted.
“They won the league and they had lost only one game all year, so we really wanted to win the title this year to prove that we are still the team to beat,” he remarked.
In the case of Pagee, he immediately thought of his former teammate, Clayton “Beef” Windigo, who died last summer in a swimming mishap and was memorialized by both sides during the final.
“Beef was a huge part of our ball team, and those are his family and his friends over there on the other side,” Pagee explained.
“For both of us to go against each other in the finals, I think he would be proud of both squads and how they performed.”
While the end result was a disappointing one for the Warriors, Kelly still was quite pleased with how the team performed in their inaugural RRDFL campaign.
“One thing that I am proud of, though, is that we came together as a team this year, and I think we should all feel really proud of what we were able to do in the season and get into the championship game,” Kelly said.
“The best thing about this is that we are gaining experience in the big games such as this one, and when you begin to get used to that feeling, things will only go right for us in the future,” he reasoned.
