EAGLES SOAR IN OPENER
Hosts wins big in Little League
The Canadian Little League baseball championship got off to a “perfect” start Friday, whether you were the man behind the scenes, the White Rock All-Stars from British Columbia or the host East Nepean Eagles.
“I am overwhelmed,” said the president of the East Nepean Eagles, Bruce Campbell, who was the impetus behind the five-year project that brought the national majors division (ages 11-12) championship to Ottawa for the first time in it’s 58-year history. “I am so proud of the volunteers, the quantity and the quality, and the pride they show. And it shows when you look at this facility.”
“There’s no words to describe it. I get choked up. The pride comes with it . . . a lot of pride.”
As he spoke, Campbell glanced over the picture-perfect, Eagle’s Nest 1 diamond, which was built in 2000. For Little League baseball’s most prestigious national championship, Campbell and his group of 100 volunteers went all out, upgrading the infield, rebuilding the two dugouts and building a media/storage building with two electronic scoreboards at a combined cost of $467,000.
And that doesn’t include the $209,000 budget to stage the championship, which will see the winner advance to the Little League World Series Aug. 20-30 in Williamsport, Pa.
“The object is always the field,” added Campbell, who is in his 25th year in Little League baseball, the past 22 as East Nepean president.
“The kids come to play. The kids come to win. If we give them the best field, we have done our job.”
The best field deserved the best opening-game performance as White Rock pitchers Darius Opdam Bak and Alen Sugimoto combined for a mercy-ruled, four-inning perfect game as the All-Stars dominated Notre-Dame-De- Grace Lynx 14-0.
The game was shortened from six inning because White Rock led by 10 or more runs after the fourth inning.
The All-Stars started with a bang, scoring five runs in the first inning, adding seven runs in the third and two more in the fourth.
“Our guys have played well since we assembled the team,” White Rock manager Bob Cumiskey said. “It’s not the first time our pitchers have combined for a no-hitter. It’s either the third or fourth time.”
Opdam Bak made 39 pitches in his three innings of work and struck out six Quebec batters. Sugimoto closed out the perfect game with 12 pitches and three strikeouts in the fourth.
The White Rock defence was impeccable, neither pitcher had a wild pitch and catcher Marcus Bradley was clean behind the plate.
Kole Turner was White Rock’s leading hitter with a home run and a double for four RBI. Matthew Wilkinson stroked three hits in three plate appearances, while Opdam Bak, Kai Cumiskey, and Taeo Maisonville also had twohit games.
The East Nepean Eagles closed the first day of competition with a similar bang, defeating the Atlantic representative Glace Bay McDonald’s Colonels 16-0 in a game called after four because of the 10run mercy rule.
The Eagles sent 16 batters to the plate in the first scored 13 runs in 30 minutes at the plate.
Michael Stremlaw, who had three hits and scored three runs, opened the game with a home run. Teammates Ben Adams and Ben Anderson also clouted homers. Adams and Tristan Godmaire had three RBI each, and had two-hit games along with Jayden Oliver and Anderson.
“It’s hard to say it wasn’t an exciting and inspirational start,” Eagles’ manager Mike Crepin said. “We were happy with that first dinger from Michael Stremlaw. It was a big sigh of relief for us and brought us back on our game (after a shaky top of the first inning).”
There was a suggestion the Canadian Little League majors baseball championship would be the swan song for Campbell, 56. But the dedicated administrator has had a rebirth of sorts as he waits on his two grandchildren — Quintin and Xavier — to step into the Eagles batter’s box in a few years.
“I have accomplished everything in my mind, but when you turn a corner there’s another corner to turn,” said Campbell, whose threeyear term on the Little League International advisory board ended in 2014.
“I like doing it and there are great people. What changed my mind was my grandchildren. They can play East Nepean Eagles Little League. It’s what I see as a rejuvenation. I want to keep attracting tournaments to use the facility.”
In the other game, the Toronto High Park Braves, the Ontario representative and a four-time national champion, used two-run homers from David Gucciardi and Samuel Dumper to turn back Alberta’s Lethbridge Southwest Red Giants 8-0.
Winning pitcher Maximilian Zentil allowed only two hits and struck out nine in 4.2 innings.
The championship is scheduled to resume Saturday with another round-robin triple-header. Glace Bay meets High Park at noon, and Moose Jaw plays its opening game against Lethbridge at 3 p.m. East Nepean takes on White Rock in the nightcap at 6 p.m.
The round-round format continues through Thursday.
The semifinals are Saturday, Aug. 15 with the championship game Sunday, Aug. 16 at 1 p.m.