Rainy River wins first two fastball games at home

Ken Johnston
Editor

With the swing of a bat men’s fastball returned to Rainy River last Tuesday evening.
The Rainy River Legion squared off against Barwick in what turned out to be a scoring frenzy that went back and forth the entire game.
Early in the first inning two young players on Barwick cranked two balls out of the Rainy River ball park. Travis Derksen, the second player up opened the scoring with a solo homer. Kevin Gemmel followed suit in the clean-up spot with another solo homer off RR pitcher Murray Armstrong.
In the bottom of the inning both Ken Gess and Brent Anderson scored after getting a triple and a double respectively. Anderson earned an RBI and Don Gall later earned one when he batted in Anderson with a single. Gall then stole second but was stranded when Wes Blight flied out. It was 2-2 after one.
In the second both teams were retired quickly. Armstrong pitched with a resolve to hold Barwick to two runs and achieved that goal. However Barwick’s Matt Gamsby was equally bent on holding RR to two. Walking two batters he bounced back to strike out two and force one out on a fly.
In the third Gamsby hit a double. That was followed by Jock Gemmel hitting a double and earning an RBI. However Armstrong struck out the next batter to slow the rally. Vaughn Wilson then hit a single that scored Gemmel. A strike out then followed and Wilson was thrown out trying to steal second by catcher Don Gall.
In the bottom of the inning RR answered back with Gall hitting a solo homer. That left the game at 4-3 for Barwick.
In the top of the fourth Willie Derksen cranked a ball over the fence for Barwick. However Armstrong shut them down after that.
Rainy then answered back with Marty Armstrong and Brent Anderson both being walked. An overthrow then advanced them and both scored to tie the game 5-5.
In the fifth Rainy River changed pitchers. Guy Arpin came in and allowed three runs.
But in the bottom of the inning RR returned fire with Wes Blight and Rick Tymkin both scoring off a triple hit by Darren Davidson. Davidson’s route to third was partly due to an overthrow error by Barwick but it earned him two RBIs. Barwick lead 8-7.
In the 6th Barwick added one run to their lead as a more settled Arpin fired them in to get a strike out and two on base.
In the bottom of the 6th Rainy River broke loose and scored 4 runs to take the lead 11-9. Arpin, Gall, Blight and Tymkin all scored. Cam Hanson earned an RBI as did Gall.
In the top of the 7th Rainy allowed Will Derksen to score and move within one but that was as far as the RR team would budge. They held on to win 11-10 and make their return to RR a memorable one. Arpin was the winning pitcher.
Later in the week Rainy hosted the Emo Bulldogs and defeated them 4-3 with a late in the game rally. The winning pitcher was Murray Armstrong. Only one homerun was hit in the game and it was by Don Copenace.
In other games last week:
Sight and Sound tied Hyatt’s 7-7
Emo Bulldogs beat Pinewood 15-2
Big Island beat Big Grassy 2-1
Barwick beat Big Grassy 7-6
Rainy River hosts Stratton this Thursday at 7 p.m.