Tomcats open 21U Nationals victorious

   St. Thomas defeats their provincial rival from Windsor, 5-2, in their tournament opener

Friday, August 17, 2018

ST. THOMAS (9 p.m.) -  Travis Keys and his St. Thomas Tomcats teammates had to wait 24 hours longer, but then they had the pleasure of defeating one of their provincial rivals.

Keys worked four innings on the hill, surrendering only three hits, while striking out five and walking one batter, as the Tomcats defeated the Windsor Selects, 5-2, in their opening game, to the 21U men's National baseball championship, at Emslie Field.

"It (first game) finally got here and the boys delivered. We stayed zoned in on game one," said Keys. "Everything was working. Troy (Lofgren) called a great game behind the plate. The defence worked for me."

The 10-team tournament, originally scheduled to start Thursday morning, was delayed an entire day due to the inclement weather and wet field conditions. Only one and half games were completed on day one of the four day tournament. Today's games didn't get underway until noon hour. Now the preliminary games are compressed over two days. The revised schedule had the Tomcats opening against Windsor instead of Quebec.

"You have to approach it the same way," said Jacob Mansfield, who had two singles and two RBI, including the winning hit. "Schedule wise, you play the same way, try to go a hundred per cent every game. You're going to get worn out whether you like it or not, you just play through it."

St. Thomas and Windsor are familiar foes, having met in last year's Ontario Elimination final and just this past July, in a double-header, at Emslie Field.

"We played these guys (Windsor) a ton of times through the years. We know them. They know us," said Keys. "We got ahead and with the pitch count I couldn't really waste pitches. The sticks were there when we needed them.  A good team game all-around."

Keys led the Tomcats in to the fifth inning, with a 3-0 lead, before being relieved by Zack Banks.

Scoreless after two innings, Tyler D'Alessandro put the Tomcats on the board first, with a RBI single.

"We were ready to win right off of the bat," said Mansfield, who slapped out a two-run single, for a 3-0 lead. "We wanted to get a lead and keep that throughout the game. We didn't want them to get any momentum. Our pitching was great. Keys threw a gem of a game and we backed him up with some runs."

Both D'Alessandro in centre field and Mansfield, in right, made superb running catches in the fourth inning, keeping the Selects off the base path.

Windsor made it 3-1, in the bottom of the fifth inning, on a Kyle Renaud RBI single.

In the sixth, the Tomcats loaded the bases, but only pushed in one run, on a Lawson Burnett RBI, scoring Troy Lofgren, who lead-off with a double. Jeremy Noonan had a RBI single in the seventh.

A pass ball allowed the second Windsor run.

The Tomcats finished with 11 hits in the game to Windsor's seven. D'Alessandro and Daniel Lichty, both  finished three for four, while both Noonan and Rhett Roney, both had two singles.

Banks allowed two runs, one earned, on four hits and a pair of base on balls.

"Scoring the three was huge and we never gave up the lead," added Tomcats manager Bob Lofgren. "It's a team win. We're not going to hit the big home runs. We have guys who can hit home runs, but we battle, we play small ball, get the base hits when we need too and we did a good job."

St. Thomas (1-0) faces Saskatchewan (1-0) later this evening.