Peewee Astros Ousted Early At OBA Playoff Tournament, News, Peewee OBA, 13U PeeWee, 2019 (Mitchell Minor Baseball)

This Team is part of the 2019 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Sep 03, 2019 | Trevor Russwurm | 988 views
Peewee Astros Ousted Early At OBA Playoff Tournament
The Mitchell Stratford RV Peewee OBA Astros ended their season on a disappointing note, going 2-2 in the OBA Peewee 'C' Championships in Waterdown on Labour Day Weekend.  The Astros were eliminated early Saturday evening by tournament finalist Port Lambton Pirates in a heartbreaking 9-8 loss in 9 innings, a tight game that took three hours to complete.

Mitchell opened tournament play late Friday afternoon vs the Clinton Mustangs, facing their hard-throwing ace pitcher who predictably snuffed out the Astro offense sending them to a 12-1 loss.  Dominic Marshall scored the lone run in the opening inning, the only Mitchell runner to advance past first base.
The Astros would bounce back on Saturday morning with a dominant 18-3 mercy win over the Belle River Braves.  Starter Keegan Priestap went three innings before yielding to Jack Miller to finish up.  Leadoff batter Carson Harmer was 3-for-3 with a walk, scoring all four times he was on base.  Caleb Templeman scored three times, and Josh French, Jordan Visneskie, Jarrett Van Bakel, Cody Bach, and Kellen Russwurm all crossed the plate twice.  Bach, Russwurm, Templeman, and Visneskie all had extra-base hits in the slugging effort.
After a team brunch, play would resume at 1pm vs the Tillsonburg Otters, ending in another mercy win 12-2.  The Otters were kept off the board until the fourth inning as starter Visneskie strongly worked his way through their lineup not allowing a hit with seven strikeouts over the opening three innings.  The Astro bats brought three runs across in the first inning to take the early lead.  Things would break open in the second with two more runs as Joel Meinen led off with a deep triple to right centre, scoring on speedy Harmer's inside-the-park home run.  Van Bakel and French would also stroke extra-base hits, and every Astro batter would contribute at least one run scored.
Facing elimination now in every game after the opening night loss, the Astros would now go back-to-back and meet the Port Lambton Pirates, with the winner moving to the semi-finals on Sunday morning.  Having some momentum going after two mercy victories, the Astro bats went to work right away with three quick runs as Harmer and French would reach base, scoring on Templeman's RBI groundout and Visneskie's double.  Bach would drive in Visneskie with a base hit.  The leadoff Pirate batter would reach base on an error and score, but at the end of one inning of play it was 3-1 Mitchell and back-to-back starter Visneskie would be pulled to manage pitch counts.  Templeman would relieve, providing three solid innings of solid relief and giving up one earned run.  The Astros continued to score runs, building a 7-2 lead after 3 1/2 innings of play.  Ryan Hubbard would come on for the bottom of the fourth, and the Pirate bats came alive tagging him for three runs on three hits and a walk to pull within two runs at 7-5.  Harmer would drive in Russwurm in the top of the sixth to make it 8-5, but the Pirates stormed right back in the bottom half with two more runs to come within one.  Hubbard would give way to Priestap in relief, and a couple of hit batsmen later the game was tied.  Miller would come on to relieve to strike out the last batter of the inning.  Runners left on base had been an issue for the Astros all game, having twice left the bases loaded.  The eighth inning was more of the same, as two Mitchell runners were left stranded again, and a scoreless bottom half moved things into the ninth inning.  Van Bakel stroked a one-out single to get a rally started, but two infield pop-ups ended things quickly.  Port Lambton showed patience in the bottom half, opening with two walks, and an RBI double would score the winning run to send them to the semi-finals.
Port Lambton would stay hot the next morning, double-dipping undefeated Exeter to eliminate them, before falling 5-4 to the champion Clinton Mustangs in the final.
Great season had by all, thank you parents for all of your support during a busy 55-game season that included a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  Truly a season to remember!