Little League champs

Yogi Berra once famously said, “It ain’t over, ‘til it’s over.”

The Thunder Bay-All Stars senior Little League baseball team is living proof. Down 4-1 Sunday to the underdog Thunder Bay Selects, with just three outs left to make something happen, the All-Stars rallied with three runs - the third coming with two outs and no room for error -  to send the game to extra innings.

The hits kept coming in the eighth.

John Masters ripped a two-run-scoring single to right off Fran Mollicolla to give the Stars their first lead of the afternoon at Baseball Central. Then two batters later, with the bases loaded once again, Zac Korchak duplicated the feat, powering the Stars to the senior national Little League championship in Regina.

The final was 8-5.

Masters, who connected with a two-RBI single in the seventh to pull the Stars within a run, said he doesn’t think anyone can imagine how happy he was to see the final out recorded, finally successful after five trips to provincial championships in his young baseball career.

“The whole game we were behind. We never thought we could come back and do it. We’re going to nationals with a big win, so let’s see if we can continue it,” Masters said.

The excitement will only continue to build as the All-Stars work toward Wednesday, their departure date for the Saskatchewan capital.

“It’s amazing, just getting the chance to go play against all of Canada. It’s just phenomenal.”

A soon-to-be Grade 11 student at St. Ignatius, Masters said he was trying to forget about what was on the line when he came to the plate in the eighth, the bases loaded and Mollicola struggling.

“The adrenaline is pumping and you’re just thinking get a hit, get a hit. It came off the bat right and found a hole,” he said.
Korchak, who pitched three innings and allowed three runs before giving way to Mark Suffak, went 3-for-5 on the afternoon with three driven in, said thinking their season was about to come to an end was “not fun.”

“When we were down, I was nervous,” he said, as teammates jubilantly dumped a cooler full of ice water over his head, aping their actions of a few minutes before, when they did the same to his father Duane, the All-Stars coach.

Shivering, he collected his thoughts and continued.

“We just did not want to lose. We beat them four times out of six and we did not want them to beat us this time. It was not good. But then we started hitting again and when I hit that one I was just so excited,” he said.

It was an all-Thunder Bay battle that appeared to be well in hand for the Selects throughout most of the contest.

Korchak unleashed a pair of wild pitches in the third that directly led to Selects runs, after starter Gage Bechard unleashed a single to centre that scored Tyler Kitching with the game’s first run.

Bechard’s only blemish until the fateful seventh came in the fourth, when LF Tallon Morris lost a fly-ball in the sun, allowing the Stars Mac Joblin to race all the way home from first, cutting the Selects lead to 3-1.

Bechard got out of a fifth-inning jam and faced a runner on third in the sixth before getting Bryce Jorgenson to pop out to end the threat.

But in the seventh time wasn’t on Bechard’s side.

Cam Nahkala legged out a single up the middle and Tommy Mund followed with a short, but difficult pop to shallow left, a ball the Selects Jeremy Aube couldn’t hang onto, putting runners on first and second and setting the stage for Masters and Jorgenson, who ultimately singled Masters home with the tying run.

Bechard was forced to leave the mound, having surpassed the 95-pitch limit, after allowing four runs on six hits.

Reliever Nick Nigro, who loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh, but escaped with the tie intact, earned the win for the Stars, who earlier beat the Selects 8-4 in round-robin play, also knocking them off in five games in the District 3 final.

Mollicola was tagged with the loss.

Notes: Senior teams from Thunder Bay have collected nine wins at nationals, most recently in 2005 when Westfort International captured the crown. Other wins came in 1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1974, 1975 and 1980 ... The Thunder Bay Americans beat Orleans on Saturday to advance to the junior national championship.