Sight & Sound to meet Barwick for fastball title

Duane Carlson of Sight & Sound has many sayings he uses during games, but one of his favourites is “Hit it hard and run fast—hit it harder and jog.”
And though the strong winds at VanJura Stadium here last night didn’t allow them to jog off their usual slew of home runs, Sight & Sound did run faster and hit harder than Big Grassy en route to a 6-4 victory.
With the win, Sight & Sound now has a chance to repeat as the Rainy River District Fastball League champs when they meet Barwick there Tuesday night with the title on the line.
“[The wind] didn’t help us one bit, it definitely gave them a few perks,” said Carlson. “But we made our runs count. We got guys on. We moved them around.
“We did a lot of things right and so did they, but we took advantage of some of their mistakes,” he added.
Although the Braves came into the game against top-ranked Sight & Sound as the fourth-seeded team, they still had expectations for a win, but just made too many mistakes and not enough corrections.
“Today’s game was just horrible. There were a few errors and it cost us a few runs, but we tried to come back,” said Braves’ pitcher Jeff Morrison, who had five strikeouts in the game.
“I had a poor game. I wasn’t feeling too good,” he admitted. “My arm was sore from the last game on Tuesday [6-5 win over Stratton], and there was just nothing I could.
“We were expecting to come out with a win here. It was a good game anyways, but we were expecting to win,” Morrison added.
Meanwhile, Sight & Sound was looking to show that their first-round loss to Stratton, which bumped them down to the ‘B’ bracket, was just a speed bump.
“We wanted to win this one. It’s the one we wanted to win,” said Ed Vold. “We wanted to show our fans and [Sight & Sound owner] Jim [Jackson], who have been great this season, that even though we took a loss early in the playoffs, that we’re here to play ball all year.
“Ever since we’ve taken that loss, we’ve had our nucleus of guys coming out and we’ve been playing good ball since.”
Going into last night’s game, Sight & Sound was missing its best player in Don Copenace, who was in Hamilton for the Six Nations All-Ontario fastball championships.
But he will be back for the championship game Tuesday in Barwick, which gets underway at 6:30 p.m.
Big Grassy had hoped to take advantage of Copenace’s absence, who was the RRDFL’s home run and pitching leader during the regular season, but Andrew Watson played solidly at shortstop and proved Sight & Sound is a well-rounded team that doesn’t just rely one player—even if that player is the league’s best.
“It’s always nice to have your aces in their places when it counts. He’s a big part of our team and there’s no doubt about it, but ‘team’ is the operative word there,” said Carlson.
“We’re missing a lot of our guys a lot of times, so we’ve learned to adapt when we’re missing somebody,” he remarked.
Vold, who always has a solid game at the plate and a reliable glove in centrefield, agreed that while Copenace is a big part of the team, he is not the whole team.
“Cimby [Copenace] is the best in the league and he’s our best player. But we have enough guys that even without him we can still play,” he remarked. “We’ve been in the league too long to have one guy be our team.
“Not one guy makes a team. It takes nine guys to go out in that field and win a game. Not one guy can win a game for you,” Vold stressed.
Sight & Sound had beaten Barwick 10-6 here this past Tuesday, handing the district squad its first loss of the playoffs.
Kevin Gemmell of Barwick believed his team’s performance here Tuesday was “mediocre” while Sight & Sound “played their best game,” and actually was cheering for Sight & Sound to beat Big Grassy so he and his team could get another crack at the defending champs.
“I’m happy he said that. It gets the juices going,” said Vold. “We want to play them. We’re not afraid to play anybody in this league and we’re ready to go.”
“They’re young and want to beat us and that’s great for our league,” he added. “We want to play them young guys because they are good and they’re going to take over this league when everything is said and done.
“It’s a young team and they have an old veteran pitcher, not to mean anything to that. George [Oltsher] is a great guy and without him, our league would be shot,” remarked Vold.
“But we’re going to go after him. And all the best to them, but they know that we’re coming.”