The North Shore's District 5 Big League (17-19) all-star team returned to the North Shore with second-place bragging rights, coming in just behind their Albertan counterparts at last weekend's 2015 Big League Canadian Championships in Calgary.
The Calgary District 8 Big League All-Stars came from behind to defeat the North Shore baseball team with their 19-15 win on the final day of play July 25.
"It was pretty devastating to lose the final but (I'm) still pretty proud that we were second best in Canada," says District 5 head coach Dal Nicholson.
The appearance at nationals marked a first for the North Shore players and coach.
"I've been doing it for 25 years on the North Shore here and it was my first time to the Canadians so it was a great experience," he says.
Nicholson's team made it to the 2015 Big League Canadian Championships after scoring a thrilling upset victory over powerhouse District 3 (Whalley, Langley, Coquitlam) in a provincial best-of-three championship final held at North Vancouver's Inter River Park. D5 had three days between provincials and having to leave for Alberta.
In Calgary July 16-25, D5 faced off against allstar squads from Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec, as well as Atlantic and Prairie regional representatives.
"First game we played last year's champions who were the favourites going into this tournament because they had seven or eight returning players from last year's team and we killed them," says Nicholson, adding D5 beat the Quebec team 15-1. "The boys were pretty pumped for their first game. You go into a tournament, you don't know how you stack up against other teams. So you just go out there and throw your best first game and we did that. Pitching was great and batting was great and we had a big game," he says.
D5 ended round robin play with a winning 4-1 record.
The North Shore team took on a squad from the Prairies in the semi-final played July 24.
"It went right down to the last pitch of the game.. .. It was a very exciting game because we could have won or lost that game in the last inning," says Nicholson. Ultimately B.C. finished that game 9-8.
Unfortunately Nicholson had to miss the championship final due to an immovable family commitment here at home, however he was with the team in spirit.
"I wasn't there for the final but I was getting texts every inning, every half inning, what the score was and so forth. It was a back and forth game too, interrupted by thunder and lightning for an hour delay in the game," he says.
The inclement weather was actually the second delay of the tournament as a tornado had touched ground southwest of Calgary on July 22.
"The kids were all hiding under the stands for a couple of hours and then we got sent back to the dorms," says Nicholson. Returning to the field, his squad ended up beating the Prairie team in the final round robin game that ended up putting them in first place.
The final between D5 and the host team was a nailbiter.
"We were ahead, then they went ahead and we tied it up and they went ahead again. So we ended up losing that game 19-15. You don't normally see that kind of runs in the final of a Canadian championship but we played six games in six days, basically, so you're running out of pitching and so it's all about the fielding and hitting at that time," says Nicholson.
Calgary's win earned them a spot at the 2015 Big League Baseball World Series, on now in Easley, S.C. The championship game is scheduled for Tuesday.
