D.L. Hannon Mosquito OBA Qualifying Action
The
OBA qualifying tournament was held in Listowel, July 19-21st.
After a bye Friday night, Mitchell started the tournament Saturday morning, where the Astros faced Kincardine for their first of three games in the early morning scorching heat. Jonah Gibbings and Matt Menheere pitched six solid innings with Max Hannon rounding out the 7th. Mitchell demonstrated their strong defence and was backing up our pitchers, as Kincardine was swinging hard but having a hard time getting through our infielders. Kincardine’s efforts to steal bases were shortened, as Ethan Jarmuth working behind the plate threw them out cleanly. Mitchell wasn’t able to break through Kincardine’s fielding despite driving balls deep into the field including one by Charlie Wolfe. It wasn’t until the later innings of the game, when the Astros had two runners on base, that Braden Hoegy launched one deep into center, knocking two runs in on his triple. Unfortunately despite a solid team effort, the boys come up short, dropping their first game to Kincardine 6-2.
Mitchell had a chance to cool off for an hour before hitting the field for their second game of the day, as they squared up against Exeter. Landon VanBakel took to the mound first proving his solid pitching, by going the distance and completing almost 4 full innings. Ryan Klumper and Eli Bender finished out the rest the game as they maintained the red hot momentum that Landon had started the game with. Eager to get some runs up on the board, the Astros were chomping at the bit as they headed to the plate, and the boys showcased their offence by hitting the ball in all directions. Exeter tried to keep up to our boys, making some quick base running and steels throughout the game. As Exeter tried to get their bats going, Mitchell was all over them in the field and solidly prevented them from crossing the plate. An heroic inning ending catch deep in the outfield was caught by Carson Brown taking away Exeter’s final chance to cash in a couple runners, and the Astros respectably won 14 – 4 in game two.
As the sun continued to beat down in the afternoon, the boys had another hour to catch their breath and try to cool off for their third game of the day, against Clinton. This was Clinton’s second game of the day, and they were ready and waiting for our pumped Astros, who were still riding the high of game two. Mitchell started out with a quick first inning, as Eli Bender on the mound struck out two of Clinton’s batters and left them scoreless heading into the bottom half of the inning. Mitchell stood strong in the first, starting off with both Ethan and Logan Verberne making solid singles, while Matt Menheere knocked the boys home giving Mitchell a solid 2-1 lead in the first inning of play. However, Clinton’s bats come alive as they answered back with three runs in the second, and additional three in the third and took the lead. Mitchell tried to retaliate on the sticks with Jonah Gibbings, Owen Bauerman, and Landon VanBakel making solid singles and quick steals in the first half of the game. Clinton kept firing back with plays to stop the Astros from advancing too far. Clinton was able to keep the bats going and hitting the holes though out the game, and the Astros ended up with a 10-2 loss in game three.
This placed the Astros in third overall and they had to patiently wait out the rest of the weekend to find out if they were going to advance to the year-end finals in August. The decision came on Tuesday, and the Astros will be heading to the OBA finals in Saugeen on the Labour Day weekend.
Congratulations on another great team effort, and fun weekend of ball. Go Astro’s Go!!