The Sunset Merchants blew a three-run lead in the last inning of the championship game Sunday to fall 6-5 to the Gladstone Whips at the Intermediate ‘A’ Manitoba provincial fastball tournament in Winnipeg.
Holding a comfortable 5-2 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh, the Merchants’ hopes of winning their second provincial title in three years were abruptly dashed.
The winning run came across on a medium-deep sacrifice fly to centrefield with one out. The Whip runner just eluded the tag of catcher Don Gall on a close play at the plate.
Starter Murray Armstrong was tagged with the loss.
Gladstone now advances to the Western Canadian championships Aug. 14-15 in Brandon, Man.
The Merchants had built leads of 1-0 after the first and 4-0 at the end of two innings. But Gladstone, which lost the provincial title to the district squad in ’96 and then won it last year, fought back with one run in the fifth and another in the sixth to close the gap to 5-2.
Despite the tough loss, the Merchants were upbeat about how far they were able to make it in a tournament of that calibre.
“It was a tough way to lose but it was satisfying to know that we got that close,” pitcher George Oltsher said. “They [Gladstone] were a very tough team, a class team.”
“They were a good team in that they’ve made the final three years in a row,” echoed veteran Guy Arpin. “They beat us earlier [in the tournament] 11-0 but we said ‘no way’ to that in the final.”
Arpin said the Merchants’ offence was strong all weekend, with all the players contributing in one way or another. He also was impressed with the way the team was able to jump out to early leads in games.
The Merchants advanced to the final with a 10-3 rout over Dryden Husky, paced by two home runs off the bat of John Desaulniers. Leading 1-0 at the end of the first, he smacked a two-run shot in the second and then added a three-run dinger in the third.
Arpin later added a home run in the fourth.
Dryden managed to score a pair of runs in the fifth but the game was still called due to the seven-run mercy rule.
But the Merchants almost didn’t make it to the semi-finals. In their quarter-final showdown against the Westside Blaze (Starbuck), the district squad trailed 7-4 in the fifth.
But as was the case throughout most of the tournament, their bats came alive. After Warren Voth belted a homer to slice Starbuck’s lead to 7-6, Arpin hit a solo shot in the top of the seventh to tie the score before Voth went deep again to give the Merchants the 8-7 win.
Greg Wilson earned the victory on the mound.
Sunset finished pool play with a 3-1 record to be the second-seed heading into the playoff round. They opened the 11-team tournament late Friday night with a 12-8 win over the Dryden Longhorns, scoring 11 runs in the first inning.
Desaulniers and Tom Woolsey hit back-to-back homers to start the game while Arpin also added a long ball later in the inning.
The Merchants made it two wins in a row by edging Canadian Lumber (Winnipeg) 6-5. Tied at two in the fifth, Trevor Oltsher snapped the deadlock with a home run, then Voth added another blast to give Sunset a 6-2 lead.
Sunset upped their record to 3-0 with an 11-10 thriller over the Steinbach Whips, once again scoring 11 runs in the first inning to build a commanding lead.
But Steinbach battled back, scoring two runs in their half of the first, three in the third, and two more in both the fourth and fifth innings to close the gap to 11-9.
They added another in the sixth to make it a one-run ball game before veteran pitcher George Oltsher came on in relief to pick up the save.
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