NORTH RIVER – The North River Well Within Chiropractic Aces are looking for their first win today on Day 2 at the Eastern Canadian Midget Boys Fastpitch Championship in North River.
The Aces were nipped 4-3 by Ontario 2 in their opener Thursday at the Leo Blair Memorial Fields. They’re hoping they don’t slip to 0-2 when they meet Ontario 1 today at 11 a.m. before taking on New Brunswick at 7 p.m.
“It’s pretty big because only four teams make the playoffs so 0-2 is a bad way to start,” said Aces pitcher Cody Anthony, a Shubenacadie resident picked up by North River for the tournament. “It’s pretty crucial to get a win under our belt because it’s a good way to get rolling from there so that’s a really big game.”
To do that, they’ll need to be a little sharper defensively and smarter on the base paths said shortstop Tyler Shipley.
“I think we need to tighten up more and a little more offence,” the Truro resident said. “We made a couple errors on the base paths (Thursday) which if we can adjust we should be able to get some runs out of it (today).”
On Thursday, Anthony racked up 10 strikeouts and allowed eight hits in a complete game effort. He also drove in all three Aces runs to drive the offence.
Ryan Crowe and Shipley each added a singles and Logan Baillie doubled and singled.
The score wasn’t what the Aces had hoped for coming in, but Anthony was happy with what he saw from his teammates.
“It’s nice to win but we are showing the Ontario teams we can still compete with any team here because they’re going to be as good as any team here,” he said.
After allowing Ontario 2 a 1-0 lead, North River stormed back to take a 2-1 lead by the fourth inning. Mother Nature also played her part, blowing back a pair of North River blasts that would have been home runs on any other day.
“It was a constant battle back and forth,” Shipley said. “It was a close game.”
But Anthony said the Upper Canadians’ offence came through when it was needed most.
“They just got those timely hits when they had pressure and we didn’t,” he said. “We ran ourselves out of some innings and if we had have poked a couple through there once or twice it could have been a different story.”
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