BY JOHN DECOSTE
Kings County Advertiser/Register
It was a great ride for the Murphy’s Fish & Chips Eagles at the Canadian junior fastpitch championships last week in St. Croix but, at the finish, Team Nova Scotia had to settle for second spot for a second straight year.
The host Eagles made it to August 8’s championship, only to fall short in a 6-1 loss to the Napanee Express, the Ontario 2 team.
After clinching a berth in the final four with a solid performance in the round robin (winning five in a row after a 1-2 start), Nova Scotia dropped its final (meaningless) round robin game 6-0 to Napanee. Winning pitcher Ian Wallwork held the Eagles to a single hit, a Blake Hunter double.
Entering the playoff round seeded third behind Napanee and Owen Sound (Ontario 1), Nova Scotia took control of its destiny with a 1-0 victory over Owen Sound in their opening playoff game. Tyson Barkman pitched a five-hit shutout and struck out 12 to earn the win. Barkman and Patrick Avery both hit triples, but the game’s only run came when pinch runner Tyler MacKeil scored from second on an error.
The win propelled Nova Scotia into a semifinal matchup against Napanee and, this time, the Eagles enjoyed the upper hand, riding a seven-run third inning to a convincing 9-1 win.
Barkman again picked up the win with relief help from Cory Avery, combining on a three-hitter. Offensively, Tyler Whynot and Donnelly Archibald hit homers, and Hunter added a double and single.
Napanee, with a second life in the double-knockout playoff round, then scored wins over Newfoundland and Labrador and Owen Sound to advance to the final – a “rubber match” against the Eagles. Winning pitcher Joran Graham, the round robin MVP, scattered six hits and struck out seven; his teammates scored six runs in the first three innings to put the game away early. Barkman took the loss, with Cory Avery giving his team some hope with four scoreless innings in relief. The lone Nova Scotia run scored on Avery’s third-inning RBI single.
Nova Scotia ended up with an overall record of 8-4, with seven of their eight victories by margins of seven runs or more.
The Eagles’ Blake Hunter, Tyler Whynot and Zack Sill were all named to the tournament all-star team: Hunter at first base, Sill at third and Whynot in the outfield. Archibald was picked as the top utility player.
Along with timely hitting, Nova Scotia got stellar pitching throughout the tournament from Barkman, Avery, Archibald and White Rock’s Justin Schofield, who appeared five times as a relief pitcher with solid results.
