Staff
The ball sailed through the fading remnants of daylight and over the left-field fence, taking with it the last hopes of the Dawson Tigers.
Brett Mann’s three-run homer in the top of the seventh was the final nail in the coffin for the Tigers, who went from regular-season kingpins to playoff spectators with a 9-5 loss to the Barwick Blue Knights in Game 2 of the West Division final of the Rainy River District Fastball League on Thursday evening.
Top-ranked Dawson had staved off elimination with a 6-1 win two days earlier at Oltsher Field in Barwick to force the second-seeded Knights to head west to Pinewood for a winner-take-all showdown.
Barwick now faces the East Division champion Fort Frances Braves in the best-of-three final that got underway last night under the lights at Couchiching (score unavailable at press time).
Game 2 is set for tomorrow at 7 p.m. at Couchiching, with the day and time of Game 3 (if necessary) undetermined as of press time.
Cole Allan led off the decisive seventh inning with a walk and Vaughan Wilson followed with a fly ball that fell in for an error.
Tigers’ ace Jeff Morrison got two quick outs after that and appeared set to emerge unscathed.
But Ryder Woolsey found a fifth gear to beat out an infield hit that Dawson third baseman Carl Big George Jr. dove for, but was too late by a step to throw out Woolsey as Allan scored.
Mann had struck out in his first three at-bats against Morrison but he got one last chance with the teams fighting darkness, which would have led to the game having to be replayed in its entirety.
This time, Mann belted a Morrison fastball out of the park to give Barwick a huge 9-3 cushion.
The Tigers tried to rally against Knights’ starter JJ Landry in the bottom of the seventh, loading the bases with one out.
Big George Jr.’s grounder for a fielder’s choice scored Tom Armstrong from third while Wilson’s follow-up throw to first trying to turn the double play turned into his second error of the inning as it flew wide of DJ Mosbeck to allow Jeff Kreger to race home.
But Matt Godin popped out to Wilson to end the game.
Godin’s solo blast off Landry opened the scoring in the first.
Landry’s pop-up in the second was dropped by Matt Anderson at first and cashed in Woolsey, who manufactured the run with a bunt single, a steal of second, and taking third on a wild pitch.
Then with two out, Morgan Desserre tried to nail Landry at third on Will Derksen’s fly to right. But he missed the cut-off man and bounced it past Big George Jr. as Landry came in for a 2-1 lead.
The Tigers took the lead right back in the bottom of the inning.
Big George Jr. singled home Mitch Seguin, who came on for Ryan Jack when he suffered a leg injury running to first after his grounder went between the legs of Barwick third baseman Brad Wakefield.
Godin then pounded a double to centre to bring in Big George Jr.
The Knights regained the lead they would never give back in the third.
Wilson walked and took second on a passed ball.
Kevin Gemmell came up next and pounded a Morrison pitch well beyond the left-field fence to put Barwick up 4-3.
Wilson’s lead-off single and steal of second in the fifth was followed by Gemmell’s RBI single.
Landry gave up nine hits in going the distance, walking four and striking out two.
Morrison also allowed nine hits while fanning 12 and walking three.
