Fighting Gophers repeat as champions

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This article was published 05/06/2022 (1462 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Garden City Fighting Gophers certainly didn’t do it the easy way, but they repeated as Manitoba’s high school baseball champions on Saturday with a 4-1 victory over the Stonewall Rams at Brandon’s Andrews Field.

Golden Gophers manager Donnie Smith said his club, which won when the championship was last held in 2019, said it was nice to turn the double play.

“It’s great,” Smith said. “The last time we played, our team actually won it and in a similar format we came through the dark side almost and ended up winning a championship.

“To do it back-to-back years makes it even more special.”

Grade 12 student Charlie Launder is the only player who was on both teams.

The final was a rematch of a Pool 1 game between the teams on Thursday, which Stonewall won 13-3.

On Sunday afternoon, Garden City earned all the runs it would need when three of its first four batters, Colson Smith, Matthew Evanchko and starting pitcher Nixon Carriere, got on base and eventually came around to score. The Fighting Gophers parlayed three hits and two walks into a 3-0 lead the Rams never overcame.

“It’s nice to start with a bit of a cushion for sure,” Smith said. “I knew we were going to be in a bit of a battle with a team that beat us up pretty good in the round-robin. I knew a lot of those boys through the AAA loop and their coaching staff so I knew three was not going to be comfortable but it was nice to get a lead and put the pressure on them.”

On the other side of the diamond, Stonewall’s young team, which only has six Grade 12 students on its 20-man roster, certainly didn’t begin the way it wanted.

“It was the first championship game for a lot of these guys,” Rams coach Cody Benson said. “I think we started off a little bit nervous in the first and then settled in and played a tie game for the rest of the game.”

Stonewall showed some life in the third inning, stringing together a pair of hits that scored Bryce Meyers. In the fifth inning, the Rams had two runners on with two out when Curtis Taylor flared a shallow fly ball into no man’s land behind second base, but Fighting Gophers centre fielder Jackson Thiessen sprinted in and made a terrific catch to extinguish what proved to be Stonewall’s last great chance to tie it up.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Garden City added an insurance run when Nathan Ens reached base on a throwing error and later scored on a passed ball.

Garden City received a sensational pitching performance from Carriere, a 17-year-old, Grade 11 student who threw a complete game six-hitter, striking out six. He used a mix of fastball, curveball and changeup, with the added benefit of the early run support.

“It was really good to see our bats come out strong and have a good lead,” Carriere said. “It brought a lot of energy to the team right away.”

A 100-pitch count was in effect, but hurlers were allowed to complete a batter when they hit the century mark. Carriere finished with 103 pitches: If the final Stonewall hitter had reached base, Carriere would have been pulled.

“Nixon did a great job,” said Smith, a Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame member who pitched for the Winnipeg Goldeyes for eight seasons. “I thought we used every guy well in certain scenarios, matching up as best we can. We had our three best guys going in the last three games and they all did a great job.

“He threw lights out, battled through some tough innings but he stayed tough and it was good to see that he competed.”

Stonewall’s Hayden Faragher also had a terrific outing, lasting into the sixth inning before being pulled due to the pitch count. He allowed just five hits, striking out four.

For Benson, it was a game of missed opportunities for Stonewall.

“It’s probably the best pitcher we’ve seen all year,” Benson said. “It was just making the adjustment of seeing a good pitcher. We had guys on base, we just lacked that big hit to score some runs.”

The two teams certainly took different paths through the semifinals into the final.

Stonewall topped the Portage Trojans 8-4 in a complete-game win from Meyers, while Garden City emerged with a wild 3-2 victory over the Boissevain-Wawanesa co-op team on Saturday morning. With the game tied in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Gophers loaded the bases and won on a passed ball that scored the winning run.

Both pitchers threw complete games, with Nathan Ens earning the win, and Tyler Robertson taking the loss for Boissevain.

“They had a really good pitcher and we battled and worked hard,” said Carriere, who also plays under-18 AAA with the North Winnipeg Pirates and with the Elmwood Giants in the Manitoba Junior Baseball League. “Our pitcher, Nathan Ens, did really good and we just battled to the end, went as a team and did it together.”

That’s part of this Fighting Gopher team’s appeal to its coach, who said nothing came easily to the provincial champions this season.

“These guys don’t let up,” Smith said. “We squeezed our way in through the zone in a tight one to get out of our zone, and they never say quit, which is huge. You never know. Baseball is a funny game, and you never say it’s over.

“That’s what we said going into the last inning with three outs, that we have to stay focused and you never know what’s going to happen.”

And that was true of the final as well. Garden City’s Carriere had a wild smile when asked about the provincial title.

“It feels awesome.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @PerryBergson