Last season, the Whitehorse Dental Donkeys seemed to have the AFD Trappers’ number. But this season – especially in the last week – it’s been a different story.
The Trappers captured the Division 1 title with an 18-17 win over the Donkeys in the second installment of the Whitehorse Co-Ed Slo-Pitch League’s Opening Tournament held at the Pepsi Softball Centre on Friday and Saturday. (Divisions 2 and 4 competed the previous weekend.)
“It seems last year we were always second place to the Donkeys – in tournaments, anyway,” said Trappers captain Logan Wedge.
Making the win remarkable – and annoying for the Donkeys – is the win was the third time in a week the Trappers defeated the Donkeys by a single run, including a regular season game last Wednesday. Making it all the more frustrating to the Donkeys, the Trappers’ winning runs always came in the final inning.
“It’s that competitive – it’s back-and-forth,” said Donkey’s Aaron France. “Sometimes we beat them, sometimes they beat us, but that’s three times they’ve beat us this week.
“It sucks to lose, but if you have to, it’s good to lose to your friends. It’s the first of many battles this summer.”
Trailing for most of the game, the Trappers evened the score 13-13 on sixth inning hits from Bret Green, Tanya White and Curt Campbell, and then took the lead on a three-run homer from Brian White.
“Tying it up takes a lot of pressure off us,” said Wedge.
After falling behind again 17-16 at the top of the seventh on an RBI from Donkeys’ Mike Gau, the Trappers tied the game on a right field home run from Rob LaRose and put in the winning run from second on a line drive up the middle from Greg Woodforde.
“He went three-for-four today, and even on his one out he hit a line-drive right at some guy,” said Wedge of Woodforde. “So he had a good hitting game.”
“It’s just the matter of a few clutch hits really,” said France. “They have a good hitting team. And we didn’t get enough runs – we left too many runners on base. We only got up by one and in slo-pitch that’s not enough.”
Gorgeous Hares take beautiful win
Like the Division 1 final, the Division 5 final was decided by a single swing of the bat in the final inning.
Gorgeous Hair Hares took the title with a 21-20 win over the Balls and Dolls team. Tied 20-20, Hares’ Cody Sands managed to get home on a hit from teammate Jennifer Hackwell – a pop-fly dropped in the outfield – getting a little help from a throwing error at third.
“There were a lot of errors, if you ask me,” said Balls and Dolls’ Monishia Liedtke-Thompson. “We weren’t playing our best, that’s for sure. I think we’re all tired. We had two games back-to-back, and this one was an hour later.
“We were all in Division 4 last year – both these two teams – and we both got bumped down, so it was definitely good competition.”
Balls and Dolls took a 19-9 lead in the fifth inning, maxing out the 10-run mercy rule. However, the Hares closed the gap to three runs in the bottom of the inning on a steady flow of hits started with an inside-the-park home run from Miller Rogers.
“We played better than they did at the time, got more runs and that was it,” said Hares shortstop Eric Murphy. “We’ve lost to them once; they pounded us pretty good. But we’re doing pretty well – we’re second in the league.
“We had to dig deep and we just came from behind, and it was a good win,” added Murphy. “Everyone did what they needed to do and it was a good team effort.”
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com