What does it take to win a championship?
Your best game.
Cochrane Crush brought its best game to the Alberta District 3 Little League Junior Tier 2 league final in a six-inning, 12-5 win over Calgary Northwest Jays for the league pennant on a hot, sunny June 26 evening at Calgary’s Brenner Park. Cochrane was home team, but played the final in Calgary because Cochrane diamonds were booked.
No matter.
Crush bats were live and the defence was off the chain, its textbook 6-3-2 double play in the top of the fifth inning the game’s defining play. Crush would come up in the bottom of the fifth and light up Jays ace Jeremy Ritchie for five runs to put the championship in the bag.
“Success for us this year was trying to get as many guys to love baseball and to get the program going strong again in Cochrane,” said elated Crush head coach Paul Vaillancourt following the win. “After watching (movie) Money Ball, I decided to switch up our practices. More than half the game is on offence. So we should spend more than half our practices batting. So we just started increasing our batting.
“The bats made it happen for us.”
Crush scored 12 runs on 12 hits, including a single, double and standup triple from leadoff slugger Damon Agyeman.
The defence also played a major role.
Quality pitching from starter Xavier Vaillancourt and reliever Jack Smilski had Jays hitters off balance, the pitch location and velocity constantly pressuring Calgary batters. With one out in the fifth, a run already scored and Jays on second and third, Ritchie pounded a Smilski offering at Xavier Vaillancourt, who’d moved to shortstop after starting on the mound. Vaillancourt ate up the grounder, froze Jays base-runner Alex Novakowski at third before firing a strike to first-baseman Ty Bauer. With Novakowski now sprinting for home, Bauer gunned it down the first-base line to catcher Eric Wozniewicz who tagged-out the sliding Jays base runner at the dish.
End of inning on a play you don’t see often, at any level of baseball, executed perfectly by 12-14 year olds.
“It’s so gratifying for a coach,” said Paul Vaillancourt. “Because you tell them to know where to go with the ball.”
The play sent Crush sprinting for the dugout and their turn at bat. Leading 7-5, Cochrane went around for five runs on three hits with two out in the bottom of the fifth to put it away.
“It’s all momentum, right?” said coach Vaillancourt. “So the fellas are pumped.”
