FARO
Faro’s Effy Croft Memorial Co-ed Slopitch Tournament didn’t take place last summer for the first time in years. But it was back in full swing over the weekend with nine teams competing, five more than in 2010.
In fact, the last-minute cancellation of the Pelly Crossing Annual Softball Tournament, which was also supposed to take place over the weekend, led to the addition of a couple more teams in Faro.
One of the late entries, the Mismatched Hooligans, were fine with the cancellation of the Pelly invitational.
Their first time playing in Faro, the Mismatched Hooligans went undefeated on their way to winning the resurrected tourney.
“We all play against each other in Pelly and Pelly was cancelled, so we put a team together to come here,” said Hooligans captain Heather Mayes. “We have all hung out and played ball together for a while.
“(We have formed this team) with different variations of it. We play in Dawson and Haines Junction and Whitehorse.”
With players from Mayo, Pelly Crossing, Carmacks, Whitehorse and even Campbell River, the “Mistmatched” squad defeated Whitehorse’s Here For Beer 11-10 in the final.
“We played these guys yesterday and beat them pretty good, so we knew it was going to happen,” said Mayes jokingly.
Tied 10-10 going into the bottom of the seventh inning, Hooligans’ Johnny Ewing got into scoring position with a double. Teammate Andrew Staples then hit a fireball to the right field fence to bring Ewing home for the winning run.
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“We just picked up people – we wanted to play baseball,” said Mayes. “It was fun.
“We’re all champs. Everyone is amazing. There were some good catches; Christine (Biegler) rocked the outfield yesterday… Lynn (Matthews) is an amazing pitcher. Everyone’s awesome.”
Tied 5-5 in the bottom of the sixth, the Hooligans pulled away with five runs on hits from Biegler, Morris Morrison, Robert Joe and a two-run hit from Jeremy Harper. But Here For Beer responded with five runs of their own to tie the game in the top of the seventh.
“We’re all friends and put the team together for the tournament,” said Here for Beer captain Kevin Holway-Keyes. “It’s been lots of fun. We’ll be back next year for sure.”
The game for third place coincidently also ended with a seventh inning run, setting the final score at 11-10.
Team Carmacks defeated the Faro Master Batters in the game.
“It was a tight game; it was a really good game,” said Carmacks captain George Skookum. “We usually bring a full Carmacks team. Most of it is my family. It’s been two years, so it was good to come back to Faro and have fun.
“The volunteers did a good job. The weather was perfect, it rained at night when everyone was sleeping.”
For Carmacks’ winning run, Tristan Undershoot was batted in by Donna Einish.
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com