The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The slo-pitch final between Subway Slammers and S.W.A.T. on Sunday was one you didn't want to miss. Subway's bats came alive early with a two-run blast giving them a 3-1 lead after the opening inning. S.W.A.T. responded with their own two-run dinger the following inning, which evened things up until the bottom of the second with the Slammers adding two more. Excellent defense put a halt to scoring in the third inning. The game remained close with the score 6-5 favouring the Slammers. It was in the sixth inning when the Slammers earned the win as they capatilized on fielding errors to score three runs, making it 9-5, and the final score. "Couple of bloopers in field and just booting the ball around," Mavis Thurstan, a member of S.W.A.T. said about what cost them the game. "There is one bad inning in every game and that was ours. It got us and that was about it." The turning point for S.W.A.T.'s offense came in the fifth as they failed to add runs to the two already scored. Shortstop Tim Coutts dove to stop the ball from entering the field and had enough time to throw the ball from his knees to second for the out and end S.W.A.T.'s drive. "Tim Coutts had a real large game for us at short stop," said Slammers coach, Chad Trumbley. "He made a lot of good plays, but our team defense is usually our strength and it was there all weekend, it's just our bats came up big for us." That play gave the Slammers a defensive boost that shut down their opponents the rest of the game. The Slammers weren't the only ones receiving great defense to end potential threats. Before the game was decided, S.W.A.T. first basemen, Matt Neubuhr, caught a liner with two outs and the bases loaded, preventing the Slammers from breaking the game open. Their defense also came up with a double-play allowing them to pick off the runner leading off the base to go to second. "It was a good game, a hard fought game," Trumbley said. "S.W.A.T.S' an excellent team. They beat us last year in the final and they always play us very tough. In this one, that last inning where we got those extra couple runs just helped us out." As the game started, Flin Flon/Creighton Mix Slo-Pitch League President, Anita Pruden predicted a close game, and she was right. "I thought these were two great teams to go up against each other," she said. "What they played today was just absolutely amazing." Along with an entertaining final, the league's president gave praise to the overall results. "This whole tournament was absolutely great," Pruden said. "We had a lot of surprises, we've had two teams in the bottom place move up and that's great. "I couldn't ask for a better weekend," said Pruden.
