Barwick and Fort to meet in championship game Thursday

Ken Johnston
Editor

It has been a week of surprises at the Rainy River District Fastball League Playoffs.
The top two teams were both beaten by the third place team, Barwick and in Rainy’s case twice.
In the second round of play Rainy River hosted Barwick last Tuesday. It was a pitcher’s dual all the way with both RR’s Murray Armstrong and Barwick’s George Oltsher pitching phenomenally.
Barwick’s Vaughn Wilson scored the first run of the game in the 2nd inning when Josh Mann hit a double.
An inning later RR answered back with a run by Joel Ashworth hit in by Mat Ashworth. The game would then stay tied for six more innings going into a third extra inning before Wil Derkson would score for Barwick and win the game 2-1.
That set RR up to play International Falls in RR last Thursday and Barwick to play Sight and Sound on Saturday.
RR handily defeated I. Falls 13-3 in 6.5 innings. Barwick on the other hand surprised top ranked Sight and Sound defeating them 12-11.
Last night Barwick struck again eliminating RR with an 8-0 victory in Barwick in a game that saw four errors by RR lead to all the runs being scored.
One error in the third saw Cam Hanson fumble a ball at first with two out that had he held onto would have ended the inning. Later that inning shortstop Joel Ashworth bobbled the ball that also could have ended the inning. Four runs came in that inning.
In the sixth Ashworth made a great catch but overthrew to first allowing JJ Landry to get a triple in what should have been an easy third out. Four more runs were scored that inning sealing RR’s fate.
Barwick has gone undefeated in the playoffs and now will host the top league playing team, Sight & Sound of Fort Frances on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Fort defeated Big Island 14-2 last night.
If Barwick wins they will complete the playoffs as champs; if they lose they will have to play Sight & and Sound again. In other words, Fort has to beat Barwick twice in a row to win; something no one has been able to do for the past couple of weeks.