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Rookie Select Hawks in Clarington Tournament
2016-06-25 - Rookie Select
The Newmarket Rookie Select Hawks compete in their first ever baseball tournament in Clarington!
On June 24-25th, the Newmarket Hawks Rookie Select team played its first tournament of the season in Clarington; and first ever baseball tournament for these boys.
On the Friday night the Hawks played their first game against Wexford-Agincourt. It wasn’t the start that the boys had hoped for as they had a few obstacles to overcome; their nerves, a very different style of pitching machine and 6 inches of fluffy clay-sand powder in the infield. Regardless, the boys played a solid defensive game, losing narrowly 5-1.
Early the next morning, the boys were met by the scorching sun and a tough hometown team, the Clarington Colts. For the first four innings, it was a back and forth affair with both sides taking over the lead. In the 5th inning, Clarington jumped on top with a string of hits, and held onto the lead winning 11-6.
The final game of the three-game set came on the Saturday afternoon against the toughest opponent in the pool, the Peterborough Tigers. The Tigers had been dominant, winning convincingly in their first two games. Coach Rich called the boys over into a huddle before the game and gave a powerful speech, calling on the boys to give every effort they could muster. The boys were responsive to this pep talk and they fiercely battled the Tigers in the deep, clay powder. They gave the Tigers a bit of a surprise. The powerful hitting force of the Tigers were kept to only four runs in the first four innings due to the stellar defence that was being played by the boys in green. In the fifth inning, Peterborough found the outfield gaps and went on to score 7 more runs. The Hawks were down by 8 runs, but they battled back scoring 5 runs and making it a three run game. In the end the Tigers were victorious 11-8, but looked shell-shocked as no other team in this tourney had put them on the ropes!
A special shout out to the Tournament MVP’s - Owen C, Jeremy R and Aidan D. The Hawks got stronger as the tournament went on and bonded more as a team. Bring on the Etobicoke tournament!