St.Thomas Evergreen Centennials

[Wednesday]

Thursday, August 31, 2006



St. Thomas still undefeated


by Scott Stanfield Special to The Citizen

Frank Cox showed why he was voted top pitcher at the 2005 Canadian senior men’s fastpitch championships.

Wednesday evening at a packed Spruce City Stadium, the hard-throwing ace for the defending national champion St. Thomas Evergreen Centennials fanned 10 batters and allowed five hits in a 3-0 win over the Prince George Black Bears, host of the 2006 nationals.

It was the sixth straight win for the Ontario side — which pounded Saskatoon 9-0 Wednesday morning (see story below) — and fourth win for Cox, who has 30 strikeouts heading into this afternoon’s meeting with Charlottetown.

“That’s the national team that we played, basically,” Bears manager Nino Fabbro said. “All the starting lineup was basically national team members.”

Victoria pitcher Collin McKenzie took the loss for the Bears, who dropped to 4-2 in the preliminary round. McKenzie allowed six hits and finished the evening with three strikeouts.

Bears catcher Chad Ghostkeeper, who has been hot with the bat the entire tournament, went three-for-three at the plate.

“Frankie, he’s tough,” said Ghostkeeper, who has hit five home runs in six round robin games. “He doesn’t give ya’ much. You’ve got to try and get what you can get off him, as you could tell he got a lot of strikeouts tonight. He’s supposed to be one of Canada’s best.

“The way I see it is that we didn’t make the adjustments. We knew he’s a drop-ball pitcher. We have to make adjustments. We’re used to seeing riseball pitchers, dropball pitchers, but this one is just a lot of drops. He’s just a smart pitcher, and as hitters you’ve got to make adjustments.”

St. Thomas opened the scoring in the second inning on a line drive up the third base line by catcher Sean O’Brien, who drove in Steve Mullaley. The left fielder had reached first base after being hit by a McKenzie pitch and had then stolen second to set up the first run of the game.

In the bottom of the fifth, Cents’ third baseman Craig Crawford led with a triple after smacking one off the right field fence. He then reached home plate on Ryan Wolfe’s RBI single.

The Cents made it 3-0 after six when Dale Levey hit a solo home run over the right field fence. Mullaley and Crawford each finished with two hits.

[good one]

St.Thomas 8 - PEI 3
play friday at 6pm.......9pm est

[Awards]

Here is the awards from last night.

Best Pitcher: Korry Gareau, Black Bears

Best Catcher: Chad Ghostkeeper, Black Bears

Best 1st Baseman: Chad Hanson, Aspen Interior Black Sox

Best 2nd Baseman: Tyler Lessard, Centennials

Best 3rd Baseman: Daryl Sandback, Black Bears

Best Shortstop: Chris Jones, Centennials

Best Fielder: Jeff Elsworth, PEI

Best Fielder: Bryan Abrey, Vancouver Grey Sox

Best Fielder: Ryan Wolfe, Centennials

Best Utility Player: Curtis Ames, Stony Plains



Top Batter: Jeff Elsworth, PEI

Top Pitcher: Scott Wagar, Jarvis Merchants

MVP: Frank Cox, Centennials

[from tj]

Centennials finish on top
Playoff round begins

Friday September 01, 2006

By Times-Journal Staff
PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. -- A year later and the St. Thomas Evergreen Centennials are looking even better.
The defending Canadian senior men’s fastpitch champions have sights on repeating after finishing the round robin at 7-0.
An 8-3 win over the Charlottetown Fawcetts from P.E.I. improved St. Thomas’s record to 7-0.
At last year’s tournament held in St. Thomas the hosts were 6-2 after the first round.
Tied 3-3 after the first inning, the Centennials waited to take over the game late by scoring two runs in the sixth inning and three more in the seventh.
St. Thomas led 3-0 on RBI singles by Dale Levy and Ryan Wolfe.
Chris Craig hit a three-run bomb off Centennials pitcher Tim Macumber, tying the game.
Brian Harvey’s two-run homer gave St. Thomas back the lead.
A run-scoring single by Craig Crawford and a two-run single from Chris Payne completed the scoring.
Chris Jones, Macumber and Wolfe each had two hits.
Macumber worked a four-hitter with three walks

[from lfpress]

Evergreens poised for fastball repeat

Fri, September 1, 2006

By ERIC BENDER, FREE PRESS SPORTS REPORTER

The St. Thomas Evergreens are being a royal pain for the opposition in Prince George, B.C., as they seek to repeat as Canadian men's fastball champions.

St. Thomas has gone undefeated in six games this week with four shutouts, allowing just six runs while scoring 40.

After a game last night against Prince Edward Island, win or lose, the Evergreens today will take on the fourth-place team, still to be determined. It could be provincial rival Jarvis, host Prince George or Saskatoon, who all had 4-2 records going into last night's games.

"I'll be playing some guys who haven't been in much," St. Thomas manager Bill Horne said before last night's game.

He was starting import pitcher Tim McCumber from Nova Scotia and is "leaning" toward starting ace Frank Cox tonight. A victory tonight puts St. Thomas in the championship final on Saturday. Cox was 4-0 and Robbie O'Brien was 2-0 to date.

In spite of the solid wins, Horne said the team was dealt a scare by Newfoundland when "the boys from the Rock," who put on a gutty performance last year when the Evergreens claimed the title in St. Thomas as host team, took a 2-0 lead. St. Thomas came back to win 4-2.

The Evergreens other wins were 6-0 over Stony Plain of Alberta, 8-0 over Jarvis, 10-4 over Vancouver, 9-0 over Saskatoon and 3-0 over Prince George.

Pitcher Trevor Wardell, who was slated to start a game Monday, returned to St. Thomas upon news of his father-in-law's death. Wardell is to rejoin the team today.

[anyway]

St.Thomas 2 - PG 1

[friday night]

Bears hitters hibernating
One-run loss to St. Thomas puts local team on the ropes

by JASON PETERS Citizen staff

The Prince George Black Bears have now lost three games in a row. One more, and their hopes of claiming the title at the Canadian senior men’s fastpitch championship will be dead.

Friday night at Spruce City Stadium, the Black Bears lost their opening game of playoffs 2-1 to the St. Thomas Evergreen Centennials. As he did during St. Thomas’s 3-0 Wednesday night round-robin victory against the Bears, Centennials pitcher Frank Cox dominated on the rubber. Cox, who has already been named the most valuable player at nationals, allowed just three Prince George hits. And, the only one that did any damage was an Evan Potskin solo home run in the top of the fourth inning.

“Frank did a great job on us, but we’re starting to get to him,” said Black Bears coach Dave Koch.

“We are getting on him. He’s a world-class pitcher — (a) 2-1 (score), and the best game probably of the tournament. We had our chances.”

The Centennials, the defending champions, scored the only two runs they needed in the bottom of the first inning. With one out, Tyler Lessard drew a walk from Prince George pitcher Korrey Gareau and then stole second base. After Tim Macumber struck out, Rob O’Brien smacked an RBI double down the first baseline. The next batter, Steve Mullaley, drove in Macumber with a single to centre field.

With two runs on the board for their team, Cox and his catcher, Sean O’Brien, went to work.

“I was just trying to keep the ball low and hit the spots Sean was calling,” said Cox, a member of Team Canada. “It’s a small park here and it carries pretty well. It doesn’t take much to get it out, so I was just trying to do my job to get them to hit it at my guys. It seemed to work out pretty good. One got away on us, but it wasn’t enough.

“It was pretty much the same game plan (as Wednesday night),” Cox added. “We know most of these guys and they know me too. But, if I throw my pitches, it’s a lot easier for us to get outs. Evan hit a nice pitch. It was in a good spot and everything, but he was looking for a certain pitch in a certain spot and he got it and drove it over the wall.”

Potskin got a drop ball on the outside part of the plate and took it the opposite way over the right field fence.

In their past three games, which included a 4-1 Thursday afternoon loss to the Jarvis Merchants to end round-robin play, the Bears have scored just two runs. The recent lack of production doesn’t concern Potskin.

“We’ve got a good hitting team here,” he said. “Cox is just a really good pitcher and we’ve got to figure out a way to get more hits off him.”

During Cox’s three-hitter, he struck out five batters. Gareau, meanwhile, surrendered five hits and struck out five.

In their next game of their double knockout playoff round, at 1:30 p.m. today, the Bears will play the winner of a Stony Plain-Newfoundland matchup that will be on the field at 9:30 a.m. today. Stony Plain ended the round robin with a 3-4 record and Newfoundland was 0-7.

“We’ve got to come out and play hard,” Potskin said. “It doesn’t matter who you’re playing — everybody deserves to be here and everybody is good. We’ve got to play hard and do our best.”

Koch said changes in the Prince George batting order are likely.

“We’ve got some guys who were swinging hot at the beginning (of the tournament), they’ve cooled off a little bit,” he said. “We’ll just adjust where they’re batting in the lineup and see where that takes us.”

Today at 6 p.m., St. Thomas will continue its quest for another Canadian title when it faces the Jarvis Merchants, 4-1 winners Friday over the Saskatoon Aspen Interior Black Sox. A victory there would put the Cents into the tournament final Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

“We’ll take it as it goes and hopefully come out with another good effort (tonight),” Cox said

[pg fan]

st.thomas newspaper , not interested in doing interviews with cents! no phone calls this week , need a quarter ?

[goatboy]

[glow=red,2,300] TJ NEEDS A NEW REPORTED[/glow]....

how many times has he been out to any games to take pictures ZERO.

we want Cluff back !!!!!

[dances with wolves]

St.Thomas 7 - Jarvis 4
St.Thomas goes to the finals tommorow at 1:30 pacific

[CANT WAIT]

Don't forget to check out the live broadcast of todays final at 4:00 on [glow=red,2,300]www.sportsjuice.com[/glow]

www.sportsjuice.com/


[glow=blue,2,300]CANT WAIT[/glow]

[game on]

COME ON FELLAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CHOICE]

CHOICE 4-3 for St.Thomas 9 innings CHOICE!!!!!!
repeat offenders

[Evergreens keep Canadian crown]

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. -- Dale Levy hit a walk-off home run to help the St. Thomas Evergreen Centennials repeat as Canadian senior men's fastball champions.

Levy broke a 3-3 tie in the bottom of the ninth inning with a blast over the right-field fence at Spruce City Stadium to lift the Centennials over the host Prince George Black Bears.

"I was just looking to put the bat on the ball and he gave me a good pitch to hit," said the 35-year-old left-fielder. "I was fortunate enough to get a good piece of the bat on it."

"I knew it was gone, I threw my bat down, and the shock of winning started pumping through me."

St. Thomas pitcher Frank Cox went the distance, allowing six hits with 10 strikeouts.

Korey Gareau took the loss for the Black Bears, giving up nine hits with five strikeouts.

St. Thomas opened the scoring with two out in the second when Tim Macumber drove in Sean O'Brien with a single.

The Centennials made it 2-0 an inning later when Ryan Wolfe beat out a throw from Black Bears' shortstop Evan Potskin for a base hit. Tyler Lessard advanced Wolfe to third with a single up the middle. Steve Mullaley hit a fielder's choice that forced Lessard at second but allowed Wolfe to score.

Prince George came back to tie the game in the fourth when Potskin drove in Chad Ghostkeeper with a blast to the fence in right-centre field. Potskin scored on a two-out double by Rick Rosychuk.

Lessard put St. Thomas back in the lead briefly with a solo home run in the fifth.

But the Black Bears answered in the sixth when Chad Ghostkeeper doubled and Glen Ormsby brought him in with a two-out double to tie the game at 3-3.

St. Thomas finished with a 10-0 record, including the playoffs. Next year's event will be in St. John's, Nfld.

[1fan]

[glow=GREEN,2,300]CONGRATS BOYZ .... WAY TO GO[/glow]