It was a classic case of sweet revenge at the civic centre’s baseball fields last Sunday.
Capping off a long Kaien Island Slo-pitch League (KISL) regular season wad the first and third place teams battling it out on the pitch for the 2015 ‘A’ championship.
The first-placed Frank’s Auto – a perennial powerhouse seemingly year after year – was set to face the Coast Industrial Construction (CIC) Leftovers – the third-ranked team and last year’s champion.
And things were never really in doubt for Frank’s to gain their revenge from a year ago, as the team came out on top versus the Leftovers, 14-3 in a five-inning mercy game.
“[This is] a lot better,” said Frank’s pitcher Trevor Girbav after the win.
“[Last year] we were a little hurt, so this year it feels a lot better to take the league and take all the trophies. It’s a great group of people – I couldn’t say any more than that.”
A five-run first inning by Frank’s Auto paced the team to an early lead.
Power-hitting and the long bomb were Frank’s weapons on Sunday, as the team wiped out the Leftovers in the top of the fifth with a three-run shot over the fence to finalize the score at 14-3.
The Leftovers came close to tying the affair at 6-6 in the top of the fourth when the squad hit a solo shot, followed by another RBI to cut Frank’s lead in half, 6-3, but a devastating fourth inning for Frank’s, which saw the team pile on another five runs thanks to solid base running and a string of base hits and doubles, made this one out of reach for CIC.
That 11-3 score was followed by a 1-2-3, three-up, three-down inning by Girbav.
The three-run homer by Frank’s in the bottom of the fifth ended it.
“Getting a three-run shot, that kind of helps out. Last year, I don’t think we had any home runs against these guys. This year, we got two and a walk-off [homer] from Aaron to end the game,” said Girbav.
“We’ve got a lot of place hitters. When we needed the pop, we got it. Our girls are probably the strength of our team. We’ve got great girls – they can play everywhere, so that’s huge.”
Frank’s ends the 2015 season with a 31-1-1 regular season record, a number of tourney titles and playoff champions.
Frank’s and CIC battled Sea-Sport, the Crest Hotel, City Furniture and Rupert Wood’N Steel for the ‘A’ title, while Rupert Cleaners, the Honey Badgers, Mackenzie’s Furniture, Grassy Bay, Northern Breeze and Britco fought in the ‘B’ division playoffs.
In the end, Grassy Bay doubled up on Rupert Cleaners to win the ‘B’ division final, 20-10.
