Wolves fastball champs yet again

Lucas Punkari

Although they weren’t the best team during the regular season, and certainly not the favourites to capture the Rainy River District Fastball League crown, the Sight & Sound Wolves once again have risen to the top of the heap.
The Wolves, the third seed in this year’s double-elimination playoffs, throttled the top-ranked Beef’s Warriors 14-2 at VanJura on Tuesday evening to capture the league title for a third-straight season.
“We wanted to win this one really bad,” Wolves’ catcher Grant Swire said 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 one,” he admitted.
“So to be able to win this game was really nice.”
Needing to beat the Warriors twice, the Wolves overcame a five-run deficit last Thursday night en route to a 9-8 victory to force the second-and-deciding game.
Then after waiting through a nearly 90-minute rain delay before taking to the field on Tuesday, the Wolves roared out to a 5-0 lead sparked by a grand slam from Marcel Pagee in the bottom of the second.
“[Warriors’ pitcher] Sheldon [Kelly] 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 it 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 a good boost for the boys because they just continued to hit the ball,” Pagee added.
After Kevin Gemmell hit a solo shot off Wolves’ hurler Bob Andy to get the Warriors on the board, Sight & Sound put the game out of reach with a seven-run outburst in the bottom of the third, which included a two-run homer by Swire.
Mike Wilson added a solo shot for Beef’s Warriors in the top of the fifth but by then the damage already had been done for the top team from the regular season.
“We all played a good game, but we kind of let ourselves down just because of one inning,” Kelly sighed.
“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.