Bantams working out kinks in Kincardine

An offensive dearth proved to be the undoing of the Sudbury Bantam rep baseball team as coach Jack Miller and the boys travelled south to attend the Kincardine Cardinals Tournament two weeks ago.

The northern crew started well enough, opening play with a 9-5 win over the Leamington Lakers, with pitchers Phil Miller and Nick Hillman combining in the win.

Miller was also one of three Sudbury players to register a pair of hits in the contest, joining teammates Brody McCaffrey and Ryan Faubert. Unfortunately, the local Bantams went to sleep defensively in Game 2, surrendering eight unearned runs in an 8-2 loss to the Kitchener Panthers.

While both Connor Brown and McCaffrey came around to score for Sudbury, the highlight of the game came in the field when second baseman Nic Legault dove to retrieve a sharply hit grounder, throwing out the runner from his knees, a la Roberto Alomar.

Pitchers Ryan Faubert and Sebastien Stefankow were victimized by the untimely errors behind them, forcing coach Miller and company to record one or two extra outs virtually every inning.

In their closest game of the weekend, the Sudbury crew dropped a tough 3-2 decision to the Southwest London Scorpions, despite a solid pitching performance from both McCaffrey and Hillman, the latter of whom struck out the side in the last inning.

Faubert paced the team at the plate, going 2-for-2 and scoring one of Sudbury's two runs. The Bantams will head to Sault Ste Marie this coming weekend for a set of exhibition games in preparation for the SOBA Provincial Championships being held in Orillia from Aug. 3-5.

Posted by Arron Pickard