Barrie edges Old Senators
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How many pitchers did the Walsingham Old Senators dress for the Tillsonburg Old Sox tournament last weekend?
“What do we have, four or five pitchers?” Walsingham coach George McDowell asked his players.
“How many do we have?” an Old Senator quipped from the dugout. “Not enough.”
“We ran out of pitching in that last inning,” said McDowell after a loss to the host Old Sox Saturday evening. “With 9-10 players, you’re hurting in the pitching department. And we’re missing four guys today, too.”
Over-35 rules require a pitching change every two innings. But, on occasion, pitchers didn’t last that long.
“His (Wade Underhill’s) curveball was actually working pretty decent,” said Walsingham catcher Terry Lammens, recalling the work of their Saturday closer. “They were catching the corner.
“The guys are doing their best, but them Tillsonburg guys can hit – they’ve all played ball… they’ve never stopped. “We’re just a little weak on pitching, the arms get tired. And that’s a lot, two games in a row like that. Ah well, it’s all for fun.”
The highlight of the tournament for the Old Senators was a nailbiter 3-2 loss against Barrie.
Barrie broke a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the sixth (in a six-inning game).
“Yeah, it was close,” Walsingham Old Senators coach George McDowell smiled. “We pitched well, it was a good game – both sides.
“A couple mental errors,” he noted, “but it was a really well played game.”
Wade Underhill had given Walsingham a 1-0 lead in the first, singling and scoring on a Greg Smithson single. Robert Kenline gave the Old Senators a 2-1 lead in the top of five singling and scoring on Mark Potter’s RBI shot.
Barrie and Walsingham had a rematch Sunday in a consolation game. Barrie outslugged the Old Senators 11-7 in an offensive showdown.
Most of the Senators still live in the Walsingham-Langton area, said McDowell, including Lammens.
For Lammens, the return of the Old Senators, organized by Greg Smithson a couple years ago, marked his return to the ball diamonds after a 12-year hiatus.
“I went and played hockey, then came back and played one year with the (Walsingham) Juniors, then quite for a bit and came back and played on some senior, too, a year or too.
“I still like it – it gives me something to do.”