THUNDER BAY -- The Thunder Bay Border Cats said farewell to their fans on Sunday the same way they greeted them to start the season in May – with a loss.
But it was a vastly different team that left the field on Sunday, falling 3-1 to the Rochester Honkers in their Tbaytel Park finale, than the one that started the season 0-15, tying a Northwoods League futility record.
The Border Cats found consistency on the mound in the second half, and combined with an offence that proved it could compete with any team in the league all season long, showed it’s got the building blocks in place to field a contender in 2017 – if the pieces fall in place.
Shortstop Andy Weber, a sophomore at the University of Virginia, said he’d love to come back and finish what he started this summer in Thunder Bay.
Sure it was trying at times, when the team won just six times in 34 first-half games.
But it was a learning experience nonetheless, said the Aurora, Ohio native, who takes a .320 batting average into the team’s final week of the season – and will make a trip to the Major League Dreams Showcase on Tuesday alongside teammates Mitch Bigras and Michael Papierski.
“The first half didn’t really go the way we wanted it to, but we got a couple of guys – a great catcher in (Michael Papierski) and our bats started coming around. Our pitching eventually started coming around and we just struck with it,” Weber said.
It was staying positive that helped fuel the turnaround.
“We’re not going to win every ballgame, but everybody had great attitude and this is probably the best clubhouse I’ve ever played in,” he said, adding he learned first and foremost to have fun.
It’s a lesson the team took to heart.
Outfielder Anthony Brocato was the only Border Cats player to outhit Weber and said things started getting better after the league’s annual all-star break, where he competed in the home-run derby.
“During the season, once we finally got our set team, we got closer together. That’s usually what a good team is made of, a nice close family. That’s what this team is. It was nice to play and start winning games in the second half,” said Brocato, who at .338, has an outside shot to finish in the top five in the league in hitting.
Losing is never fun, said manager Cole Mahoney-Bruer, who took over the job when Danny Benedetti left the team to pursue full-time job opportunities.
Consistency was the big issue in the opening half – the team would hit one day and not the next, get a decent outing on the mound, get rocked the following night.
“We kind of started putting it together a bit in the second half and got on a roll – I wouldn’t say too big, but definitely you could see marked improvement by all the guys,” said Mahoney-Bruer, indicating he’d be open to returning as skipper in 2017.
“I think it was consistency and making pitches more. In the first half we missed a lot more pitches down the middle and teams in this league are going to make you pay. The guys stepped up on the pitching staff and the hitters just kept doing their thing.
Of the 24 players who finished the season with the Cats (13-18, 19-46 overall), 16 are eligible to return in 2017, including Papierski, Weber, Bigras and LF Shane Shepard, who tied Brocato for the team lead with eight home runs.
The Honkers did all of their damage in the sixth inning off Thunder Bay starter Brandon Langan, who retired the first eight hitters he faced.
Rochester loaded the bases for catcher Casey Worden, who singled to left to score one. Shepard booted the ball on the play, allowing two more to score.
Cameron Aufderheide went eight innings, allowing just five hits to earn the victory. Shepard drove home the Cats lone run in the third, picking up his team-best 38th RBI.
Cat tracks: The Border Cats drew 1,179 to the park and finished with an average attendance of 835, 76 more than in 2015.
