Things weren’t looking good for the Complete Concrete Athletics.

Down 13-3 to the Jat’s Backyard Landscaping Diggers after two innings, the Athletics settled in and began to chip away at the deficit.

The Athletics got four back in the top of the third, added a single run in the fourth, and then exploded for seven in the fifth, eventually overtaking the Diggers in the top of the seventh to win the final of the Whitehorse Co-Ed Slo-Pitch League’s Div. 1 opening tournament by a score of 25-21 Sunday.

The “start slow, finish hard” mentality is becoming a trademark for the Athletics, who won last season’s playoff championship in similar fashion over Dave’s Cleaning Crew.

“We’ve honestly just always been a slow-starting team,” player-coach Brett Green told the Star postgame. “It takes us at least two or three innings to actually get our stuff together and start playing good ball. We’re just continuing the trend I guess.

“I find as long as we stay positive and keep the morale up, we’re going to bounce back eventually.”

The Athletics used three pitchers in the contest: Amie Cofer started the game before being quickly replaced by Valerie Boxall. Boxall was then relieved after allowing 10 runs in the second inning.

Vanessa Brault settled things down by coming in to pitch the final five innings.

“I just gave them something different to look at,” Brault said. “I try to pitch on the inside and get foul balls.”

Shortstop Matt Kremer hit a clutch two-run homer to make it 18-16 in the top of the seventh and scored four runs total in the win.

Left-fielder Duncan Harwood followed that up with an out-of-the-park grand slam as Complete Concrete piled up nine runs in the frame.

Diggers pitcher Al “The Sodfather” Thomson was eventually relieved by Justin Saunders, but it was too late.

The Diggers would score five in the bottom of the frame – courtesy of home runs by Matt Thomson and Al Thomson – but it wasn’t enough to close the gap and force extras.

Matt Thomson, Nathan Thomson and Jennifer Hackwell each scored three runs for Jat’s in the loss.

“We played six good innings and then just kind of lost it in the last one,” said Nathan Thomson, who played shortstop in the final. “It was just a bunch of little plays. We had them on two outs for what seemed like a really long time.”

Notable Athletics’ performances came from outfielder Chad Curlew, who scored five runs, and third baseman Joe Vigneau, who crossed the plate four times.

Other members of the Athletics include: Marcy Ayotte, Jeremy Beebe, Jillian Dean, Heidi Harry, Tim MacIntosh, Gibson Pearson, Kris Schille, Naomi Smith and Marcie Stenzig.

Jat’s entered the final as home team after going undefeated prior to the final. Other teams participating in Div. 1 were Dave’s Cleaning Crew, MOB (Matheson Oil Burners), the Ridge Mutts and the Whitehorse Dental Donkeys.

The Athletics dropped their first game to Dave’s Cleaning via a mercy score, but once they got that one out of the way, they couldn’t be stopped.

“We had a rematch against Dave’s to get to this game and we managed to once again come from behind and beat them by one run,” said Green. “Honestly, in this division, any team can win on any night.

“We’re competitive and we want to win all the time. This is just the start. We want to win Dustball and the closing tournament (too).”

In other tournament action over the weekend, Bailey’s Pub won the Div. 4A title, while the Crowe MacKay Write-Offs were victorious in the Div. 4B final. See tomorrow’s paper for those stories.