Comets won’t play nice as provincial hosts

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This article was published 09/08/2019 (2636 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Rivers Comets have no intention of being gracious hosts at senior AA baseball provincials this weekend.

They’d like to put on a show for the home crowd and get their first chance to do that today at 5 p.m., when they open against the Pilot Mound Pilots. Rivers went into the South West Baseball League playoffs with a 10-4-1 record and had home-field advantage in its North Division semifinal against Oak River.

A 2-1 loss at home on July 11 followed by a 3-2 defeat on the road July 14 promptly slammed the book shut on an otherwise promising season.

This weekend has been circled on their calendar for quite some time and became a larger focal point after that.

“We’re pretty excited. This has been something since we found out we were hosting last year. Our guys have been excited,” Comets coach Aaron Tycoles said. “It’s been a goal all year round to try and win this tournament in our hometown. Obviously the way the season ended was a little bit disappointed but the guys have still been ready to come to the ballpark and get ready to play this weekend.

“Our pitching and defence all year was fantastic. Scott Beever came back throwing and living in town this year, which was huge for us to add him to Ryan Shaw. We had Jody Anderson come back and play shortstop for us, so we solidified our defence and pitching, and now we’ve got to hit the ball a little bit more consistently. Hopefully we’ll have some success this weekend if we can do that.”

The old cliché: Offence wins games, defence wins championships has merit, but in Rivers’ case, they needed a little more run support to have a shot at the title. The Comets allowed a league-low 47 runs in 15 regular season games, but were just seventh out of 11 teams at 86 runs for. Three in two playoff tilts proved not enough.

“The biggest key is just taking advantage of situations. When we get runners on base, to be able to actually score runs. That was the biggest thing in the Oak River series,” Tycoles said.

Rivers can still lean on its pitching this weekend. Beever was tied for third with four wins in five starts on the season and an earned-run average of 0.88. Two of the guys tied with him, Virden’s Jeff Peel and Oak River’s Reece Ciprick, are joining the squad for provincials, adding to an already deep staff.

Beever is the go-to guy on the list.

“He is as mentally tough as they come on the mound now, which was probably one of his weaknesses when he was younger,” Tycoles said. “He goes out there, his demeanor doesn’t change no matter what situation in the game and he can pitch us out of trouble pretty quickly. He pounds the strike zone and does everything you want an ace to do.”

Mike McFadden isn’t sure how much time he’ll see on the bump, but he’s fired up for a number of reasons.

“Even just more games at home,” he said. “It would have been great to keep going in the playoffs, but to bring this back to Rivers is a big thing. It’s nice to compete in provincials and have a good team, and we think we can actually compete. To be able to do it at home is pretty cool.”

“We’re a pretty confident group. We’ve got a lot of guys who can play and we just fell dead in playoffs, which is too bad. But we have every intention of going into Sunday this weekend, that’s for sure.”

That could be a tall task, as word around the senior AA leagues is this might be one of the best fields at the event in recent history.

Joining Rivers and Pilot Mound in Pool A are the Santa Clara Baseball League champion Portage Padres and the Boissevain Centennials, who are a win away from repeating as South West champs.

Pool B has the Hamiota Red Sox, who went 12-3-0 before being upset by Virden in the first round of the South West league’s playoffs, as well as the GW Vacuum Truck Service Young Guns of the Andrew Agencies Senior AA Baseball League, the Border league’s Morden Mohawks and Winnipeg’s Elmwood Giants.

“We know that every team is going to be good. Right now the first game circled on our calendar is Game 1 against Pilot Mound. That’s the big game to get that first win under our belts,” McFadden said, adding he expects lefty Anthony Friesen to take the mound and try to silence the home crowd.

“He’s been the top guy in that league for years. He’s got lots of innings under his belt. He can throw Friday and he can throw Sunday and that’s what we kind of expect from Pilot Mound. That being said, they could leave him in the bullpen and only use him when they need to.”

McFadden has put up solid numbers at the plate, batting .360 with eight RBI. While it hasn’t been his best season and he’s hoping for more at the top of the lineup this weekend, it’s about more than baseball for him.

“The community has been behind us ever since we started building that diamond (in 2016). I have no doubt the crowds are going to be there and the fans are going to come out and support. For anybody coming out and coming to watch some games, realize it was the entire community that built it and everybody’s been involved,” McFadden said. “It’s been big for the entire community, so that’s why it’s big for us to host it and showcase what our whole community can do when we come together.”

If anyone’s going to spoil the party for the hometown team come Sunday, it’d be foolish to count out the boys from Brandon. The Andrew Agencies league reached the final of all-star provincials in Oak River last month and the Young Guns are poised for another solid showing for the five-team loop.

They’re taking a break from their best-of-five league final, trailing the RFNOW Cardinals 1-0, and have added Buddy Mayert, Clark Whelpton and Luke Whelpton from the Cardinals and brought in Chris Kennedy as an assistant coach for the weekend.

They’ll set their differences aside, briefly, to chase a title.

“We have all our top pitchers going and pretty much all their guys going. You sacrifice one thing to possibly do well at another and vice versa. We’re going in with the expectation that we’ve got a good chance of winning it,” Young Guns’ ace Sean Dryden said. “We fell a little short at the all-stars, lost in the championship … Going forward it’s all hands on deck trying to win this weekend and we’ll let the league championship take care of itself.”

Rest shouldn’t be an issue with the team’s pitching staff, as the Whelptons, Jordan Robertson, Jordan Old, Dylan Haney and Garrett Popplestone can all shoulder the load.

“We got arms, it’s just a matter of managing them properly and getting the most you can out of them, utilizing situations,” said Dryden, 40, who’s been to enough of these events to have an idea of how to approach them.

“We don’t need guys to throw seven innings. If you get a four-inning stint out of a pitcher, go through the order a couple of times then throw some other guys to keep them off balance, that’s the approach I take.”

Dryden has adjusted his game over the years, now relying more on years of experience and less on a blistering fastball.

“I go up there, just try to utilize what I still have, hit my spots, keep guys off balance, show all four pitches and just pound the strike zone. Make them put the ball into play,” he said. “ You’re not going to get outs unless you make them swing the bat.

“The strikeout days of just coming up and blowing it by them, for me, are over. I just try to utilize my knowledge and teach other guys the same thing. You don’t need to beat a guy on three pitches, or one pitch or two pitches, you got to make them make a mistake. The mistake they make is putting the ball lin play sometimes and that’s why you got eight guys behind you ready to make a play for you.”

Brandon and Elmwood open today on Field 1 at 2 p.m., and Morden and Hamiota start on Field 2 at 2 p.m. A home run derby follows Portage and Boissevain’s game at 5:30 p.m. The top two teams in each pool advance to Sunday’s semifinals at 9 a.m. and noon, with the winners meeting for the title at 3 p.m.

The format allows for one, maybe two losses in pool play to advance to the playoffs.

Dryden says that veteran experience helps with the bigger picture as well.

“We’ve had a couple of bad games, but you know what? It’s a game,” he said. “You get to play another game and you move forward. They don’t get beat down too much, and if they do some of us older folks will correct them.”

NOTES: Admission is $15 per day or $25 for the weekend. The last game of each day is $5 … The beer gardens will be open all weekend, and will feature live music Friday after the home run derby.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @thomasmfriesen