Flin Flon and area can join in the celebration as northern Manitoba’s top slo-pitch players revel in a historic victory.
The Paperworks Pounders, whose roster includes three local players, are Canada-wide titleholders in their division following the recent Slo-Pitch National (SPN) National Championships in Winnipeg.
“We definitely had a lot of good run support,” says Brian Zerbin, who formed the Flin Flon contingent along with Cory Grant and Colin Hynes. “We were a very good batting team and offensively very, very strong.”
Zerbin can say that again.
Not only did the Pounders leave the tournament with a perfect 8-0 record, they capped off their dominance with an exclamation point: a 23-8 win in the championship game.
The Ebb and Flow Razz, from Ebb and Flow, Manitoba, were the Pounders’ poundees in the final, marking the first time a northern Manitoba slo-pitch team took nationals in a men’s category.
Top spot
The Pounders earned top spot in Canada for teams in their skill range, the Men’s E division for recreational players.
Zerbin, a construction worker, was the club’s second baseman, while See ‘Friends’ on pg. 5
Grant, a tailor at Hudbay, played first base. Hynes, a Hudbay electrician, was a spare.
All three men, long-time friends in their late 30s, proved themselves valuable ingredients on a Pounders squad that outshone 13 other clubs at the championships, played August 1-3.
Among the competition were two other teams from northern Manitoba, Thompson’s Kings of Leon and Cross Lake’s The Brothers.
Clubs from Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Stony Mountain, Man., and Chilliwack, BC, also vied for the title, which included a torso-sized wooden plaque.
Like Zerbin, Hynes was big on the Pounders’ offensive game.
“Everybody on the team hit well,” says Hynes.
In addition to the three locals, the Pounders consisted mainly of players from The Pas along with a few from Thompson and northern transplants now living in Winnipeg.
To qualify for nationals, the Pounders triumphed at a tournament in Thompson last year.
Coed success
Zerbin, Grant and Hynes were also members of the Evil Marsupials, a Flin Flon area team that enjoyed some success in coed play at the SPN tournament.
With a 4-3 record, the Evil Marsupials ended the weekend fifth among 26 participating clubs.
Hynes, who played outfield and shortstop for the Marsupials, says the ranking was not quite what he and his teammates had hoped for.
“We played well defensively but didn’t hit as well as we should have,” he says.
Nonetheless Zerbin, who played outfield, called the club’s performance a great team effort.
“It was a good weekend,” he says. “Our bats weren’t as strong as we hoped, of course, but we still ended up doing pretty good overall.”
Complete Bedlam
Another Flin Flon area team, Burkees Bedlam, battled in the coed play and went 2-4 to finish 13th overall.
“We played some pretty good ball in the round-robin portion and ran into some good competition,” says Chad Trumbley, co-coach of Bedlam along with brother Ryan.
Bedlam went 2-2 in the round-robin before losing two heartbreakers in the playoffs to squads from Toronto and Manitoba.
This marked the ninth national competition for Bedlam, formerly the Subway Slammers, the core of which has been together for more than 15 years.
Denise Davis, a pitcher for Bedlam, enjoyed the high level of play in Winnipeg.
“I’m a competitive-type person, so I like that,” she says. “It comes down to, everybody is making plays and not a lot of mistakes, and everybody knows how to play the position. We’re all just working really hard to win the game…[and] it’s just a thrill, it’s awesome.”
Looking ahead, Kent Kamehameha, a regional director for SPN, said the organization hopes to host a provincial championship in northern Manitoba as early as next year.
