A small town team knocked off the big city squad to win the annual Ponoka Lions Slo-Pitch tournament.
The event, which ran July 12 to 14 at the River Valley diamonds, saw 17 teams competing for some prizes and pride with the Big Valley Stealers taking away top spot after posting a 16-9 victory over Edmonton’s Showtime in the ‘A’ event final.
After two days of round robin play, Showtime earned a berth directly into the final after failing to lose a contest while the Stealers had to play a quarter-final where they got past Cohesion and then won the semifinal 14-4 over the Sport Sox.
The final though was all Stealers, who got up 5-0 early and cruised to the title.
Over in the ‘B’ event was where the big excitement was, as local squad Medcor Misfits put up a late fight only to fall 11-10 to Wetaskiwin’s Friends of RJ. Medcor struggled to score for most of the game and were down 11-2 heading in the final inning.
That’s when their bats seemed to come alive, notching eight runs, but that’s where the rally would stop and the title going to the other dugout.
The Friends of RJ earned a bye to the final after getting past Kronik, while Medcor had to beat Dynamite in the quarter-final then mercied We Got the Runs 11-1 in the semifinal.
It was the Edson Drillers that came out the winners of the ‘C’ event after posting a 20-10 win over Wetaskiwin’s DaWonk Sox. The Driller beat the Rivers Rats 15-5 to have the bye to the final, while the Sox has to first get by the Brew Crew 12-11 in the quarter-final and followed that up with 14-11 semifinal victory over the Spanish Nationals.
Organizers were pleased with the turnout as well as the rain holding off on the Saturday, only making many of the those participating in that night’s home run derby slightly soaked.
All of the proceeds from the event go right back to supporting many local Lions Club projects.