Derek Hemsley hits two-run homer to help Cinderwood win

Cinderwood is developing a lot like wine this year in the Yukon Fastball League. Better with time.

Cinderwood is developing a lot like wine this year in the Yukon Fastball League. Better with time.

The team won its first contest this past Sunday, beating Casa Loma 9-3. With the win, Cinderwood improved its record to 1-3 and are just one victory back of Casa Loma, which sits in second place at 2-2.

Currently in its inaugural season, the league has only three teams, but there is a chance that it will add a fourth this week. The potential new group would mostly be players in their 30s and 40s.

As a result of the league having three teams, it is using a format that involves one squad playing a double header each Sunday. Last Sunday, as luck would have it, was Cinderwood’s turn when it took on both Casa Loma and Roadhouse. The double header turned out to be a blessing for its players, who won their second game.

The squad only had one bad inning on Sunday, but unfortunately for Cinderwood, it resulted in them giving up 15 runs in the top half of the first against a tough Roadhouse group.

However, a pitching change made all the difference for Cinderwood, which began chipping away at its deficit.

The team scored nine unanswered runs to close the gap to six, before running out of innings.

“For Cinderwood to come back and score nine runs in the last four innings basically they showed they are developing as a team,” said Greg Cowman, president of the Yukon Fastball League. “These are a bunch of guys that really didn’t know each other at the beginning of the year.

“That was their third game together. So that was basically the story of that first game, they just got off to a really bad start, but it was a good game.”

Cowman gave a lot of credit to Cinderwood pitcher Kirk Gale, who shutdown Roadhouse’s offence after the first inning.

Game two was even better for Cinderwood, which took a 4-3 lead after three innings. The team added some insurance in the fourth when Derek Hemsley cracked a two run shot over the fence.

“They are just a bunch of good ball players that are just getting to know each other,” Cowman said. “A lot of the guys haven’t played in a while, so as they sort of come together and get their timing down with their bats and know which guys are covering what and where in the field and that kind of thing. They are just starting to play more as a team.

“So we are looking for better things out of them in the second round of the round robin anyway.”

The Yukon Fastball League has a meeting scheduled for tonight, regarding the possibility of allowing a fourth team.

Each squad would play one game on Sunday if the league allows a fourth team, which Cowman said was the original plan for this season.

He wasn’t sure if it would result in the season starting over again, but added this is one of the things that will be discussed.

Cowman said the determining factor is needing to get the registration fees and a team list, which he hopes will have at least nine or 10 players on it.

There is more than 40 players in the league and Cowman said the potential new group might have to use some of the already registered members.

“That’s one of our concerns is if we form another team of oldtimers we will lose some of the players that have already registered in the league and we don’t know what the other guys commitment is going to be,” he said. “Guys like to just show up and pay their dues and play.

“This isn’t drop-in ball, it isn’t intended as drop-in ball. We are trying to get some competition going.”

It also has to be decided on who will be a sponsor of the possible new group.

Despite the challenges involved, Cowman said the league and its players could really benefit from having a new team.

“It might be fun for some of the young kids to actually play on the oldtimers team and get some skills and have some of the older guys mentor these young ball players,” he said. “We do have a couple of 17, 18-year-old kids.

“These are the kids that we would like to keep entertained, give them something to move into in later years.”