Twelve year old Chris Babcock of Staples runs to first base as he cranked the ball into the midfield. His teammate behind him reaches home plate to score a run while Forresters first baseman waits for the throw. Staples was able to overcome their opponents in extra innings to take third place. For more information on the weekend tournament see page 8.
Tournament ends the season
By Trevor Crawley - Kootenay News Advertiser
Published: July 02, 2008 6:00 AM
Updated: July 02, 2008 2:32 PM
It may be more of an American pastime, but our Canadian kids have no trouble competing as well. To some, there's nothing like the smell of a hot dog, the crack of a bat, and the smell of old leather.
The Cranbrook Pee Wee minor ball held it's year end wrap up house tournament over the weekend at Confederation Park. The four house teams in the league with a fifth scheduled to come from Kimberley, but bowed out last minute.
After playing four games in a round robin structure through Saturday and Sunday, the top two teams faced off for gold and silver and the bottom third and fourth seed played down for bronze.
Rounding out the results from the preliminary action, Eagle Plains and Pharmasave took the top seeds and faced each other down for gold. In the end, Eagle Plains proved to be too much for the Pharmasave team as they won the game with a 9-2 score. Over in the other field, Staples and Foresters played down for the bronze position, where Staples came out with the win in extra innings by a score of 11-7.
Eagle Plains head coach Ron Van Steinburg says that he is proud of the way his boys played and believes that they showed character. "It was neat to have this block of kids that have played hockey but never baseball," he explains, "They'd never played the game before this season but they are natural athletes and they worked hard."
In order to keep the games competitive, Steinburg says that the league has a 'mini-draft' in the beginning of the season so that teams do not end up being stacked. "We want to keep it fun for the kids," he points out.
Staples coach John Sebben praises the league for putting on a well organized tournament that was fun for everyone. "These are all good kids; they worked hard and had fun," he believes. He says that throughout the season, there was no one team that dominated. "Games were pretty even; we drafted kids so it would be that way and everyone enjoyed the season."
