Big fish, big fun, big funds at local fishing derby

The South Dundas Atom B Lions used a 4-1 victory over the Smith Falls Bears here Sunday, February 1, to reclaim their division’s first place standing.

The Lions continue to battle for the division’s top spot with Kemptville 1 who had pulled back into the lead by a single point early in the week.

Sunday’s win pushed the Lions ahead by a point.  Kemptville has 29 points with three games left while the Lions have 30 points and two games remaining.

The Lions got off to a poor start on Sunday against the Bears, and couldn’t get their feet moving until the second period.  

Smiths Falls opened the scoring on a partial breakaway 52 seconds in when Adam Hustins shot got passed Lions goaltender Mateo Lacroix.  

Three minutes later, the Lions were called for tripping. Zach Scarbeau and Owen Patterson did a good job killing it off along with the help of defencemen Jack McCaan and Alek Larocque to prevent the Bears from increasing their lead.

Smiths Falls had a glorious opportunity to go up 2-0 early in the second when it looked like a rebound was going to get hammered into the back of the net, but out of nowhere Lacroix put the paddle of his stick down to take a sure goal away. The big save served as the Lions wake-up call. 

Monty Dejong tied the game at 2:26 of the third period assisted by Sam Connors.  

Then, less than one minute later, Owen Patterson drew a Bears penalty with his heavy forecheck. 

At 2:47, Sean Nicolaassen made the Bears pay for taking that penalty, when he picked up the puck inside his blue line, blew past a defender at the red line and went in alone on Louis Legare. 

He faked a forehand, then went backhand to give the Lions their first lead at 2-1.  

Quade Mullin made two of several key saves during the third. 

The Spencer Barclay, Connors, and Dejong line used a good forecheck to put the Lions up 3-1 with 5:02 left on the clock.  They applied the pressure on the forecheck, Barclay grabbed a loose puck and then centered to Dejong who made no mistake.  

It looked like the Bears were finally going to solve Mullin late in the game,  during a scramble around the goal, but then out of nowhere defenceman Stefan Kronstal stacked his own pads, slid through the crease to make the save and knock the puck out of harms way.  

At just over one minute left, Cam Shaver passed the puck out front to a wide open Dryden Buter who scored the Lions fourth goal.

Next action for the South Sunda Atom B Lions is this Thursday, February 5, on the road to Akwesasne.

[…]

It’s those well-known words, “Let’s Play Ball” that Austin Marcellus hopes he will hear this fall to herald in one more season of U.S. University NCAA level 2 baseball.

The Pigeon Island Road, 22 year old has been south of the border for the last four years, attending school on partial baseball scholarships. 

He first completed the two year college program at Lochawanna Collge and one year of ball (he was injured the first year),  at Scranton, Pennsylvania, and then transferred to Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina. He graduated from Limestone this spring and completed his second year of college ball for the Saints.

Austin, who was team captain at both schools, is back home for the summer but is hoping to return to Limestone for one more season.

“I was injured in my freshman year at Lochawanna, which means I have another year eligibility to play ball.”

Having graduated from Lochawanna this spring with “my Bachelor degree in Sports and my Bachelor degree in Business, if I go back this year, I would get my Bachelor degree in Marketing and a Coaching Minor.” 

Austin began playing ball when he was six or seven years old. “I didn’t play when I was really young, and when I did start it was because my mom forced me.” He is the son of Bert and Sandi Marcellus.

“I started playing here (Morrisburg) and played on some Upper Canada All Star teams. I played with the Bunnies (Brockville) for about five years.”

It wasn’t until he was a young teenager that Austin, who plays the infield moving around between second, third and shortstop, began to lean heavily towards baseball. 

“I was always excited about playing hockey when I was growing up. I actually thought I was better at hockey. Guess I just wanted to be different,” he says of his success on the ball diamond.

It was while he is was in grade 12 at Seaway District High School, that Austin began looking around for a U.S. baseball scholarship. He went to work sending a number of applications out and the result was the partial scholarship at Lochawanna.

“At Lochawanna, we won our conference both years, and we won the North East Region both years.” That put the team in the Jucco Division 2 World Series, both years in Enid Oklahoma.

Although Austin was injured his first year out, he recalls his first experience at intense training. “My  junior college, the only way to describe it is if you’ve ever seen military training, that is what it was like. They are there to win, and you are there to play baseball. At the Junior College level there are no rules, so we would practise 10 hours a day around our studies.  We would start at 6 a.m., go to class until noon and then practice until 8 at night.” The college baseball season runs from early February to the end of May.

In contrast, once he transferred to Limestone, there were some time guidelines that restricted practise to five to six hours per day.

This spring, Marcellus had a solid season with the Saints who play in the 12-school Carolinas Conference. At five foot 10 and 175 pounds, he had a .331 batting average and was named the Limestone College Saints, Best Offensive Player. He also led the team in stolen bases and was second in RBIs. As a team, “we didn’t do that good.”

Marcellus would like nothing more than to return to Limestone for one more year. Down the road he says he would like to be coaching at the college level, but right now, he just wants to play ball.

 “I am kind of hoping baseball takes me somewhere. I am too old to get drafted, but I’d like to play some independent ball, or I might try to go to Australia. There’s lots of ball to play, now it’s finding a spot.”

Marcellus does have a spot with the Saints again this year, but again on a partial scholarship. So it is the remaining tuition money that is his consideration.

He is working the summer in interlocking landscaping, which helps to keep him in shape and is playing ball with the Capital City Reds in Ottawa which offers ball to college eligible “amateur” players. The Reds have games against teams in the Elite U-18 Summer Baseball program, college summer teams and with semi-pro and professional level teams.

Coming off a good college season with the Saints and playing well with the Reds, Marcellus is hoping he has himself positioned for the opportunity to play ball next season.

[…]

Good weather, good course conditions and some difficult pin placements were keys to the annual Cedar Glen Men’s Open golf competition on Monday, said Kurtis Barley, who posted a solid two-under-par 68 to easily walk away with the championship.

Despite the tough pin placements, 12 golfers broke the 80 barrier in a field of 72 golfers.

“The course is in really great shape,” said Barkley following his win.”The greens were a little quick and some of the pins were tricky. If you were putting downhill, there was the possibility of it rolling off the green. I only made one really good putt all day, and had two stupid bogies [both from three putts], but I played well.”

A pair of birdies on the front combined with one of Barkley’s bogies put him one under (33) at the turn. His only difficulty on the front was on the par four, 401 yard seventh hole when he caught a tree with his tee-shot. “That left me about 220 yards out.” A three-wood got him to the fringe and “I three putted from there.”

Then on the back, he collected a pair of bogies on the par four, 12th and 16th holes. On 16, “I three-putted from six feet. It lipped out twice.” He finished the back at one under with birdies on 13, 15 and 18 for the one under 35 and his 68 total.

In addition to Barkley’s 68 there were a number of solid rounds in the 26-player A flight.

Next up was Upper Canada’s Tom Thompson with a 73. Thompson’s 73 gave him the low net in A flight with a 65. 

Lance LePage of Morrisburg  was just one stroke back with a 74, and Fabian Adams and Craig Nooyen tied with 76’s.

James Morrell, Lonnie McIntosh and Rick Barkley posted 78s, and Brad Mayhew and Mike Guy tied with 79s.

Three-year defending champ, Paul Nooyen was out of this year’s race with an 80.

The second big story of the day came out of B class with Cedar Glen’s Greg VanDellen picking up a solid win with a 74. VanDellen used birdies on the first two holes, and then added a third on the par three sixth for a strong even par 34 front. He added a 40 back nine for his 74 finish.

Next up was Morrisburg’s Kirk Barkley with a 77, followed by Cedar Glen’s Chris Phifer at 79. Barkley’s 77 gave him the B flight low net win with a 63.

The three B flight players, brought the total to 12 golfers for the day to break the 80 barrier.

Next up in B flight were Mike Laurin (Upper Canada) with an 81, Bruce Whitteker (Cedar Glen) at 82, Daryl Shelp (Cedar Glen) at 83 and Dave MacLenaghan (Morrisburg) 84.

Cedar Glen players John Macpherson and Lawrence Larocque and Iroquois’ Don Poland tied with 85s in the 36 player B division.

Doug Warner (Morrisburg) was the top shooter in the 10-player C flight with an 89. Low net in C flight went to Jason McIntosh who shot a 91 for the low net score of 70.

Next up were Francis Barkley with a 94 and Ben Macpherson with a 95.  Byron Brunt shot a 98 and two-year defending C champion, Mike Berube was next with a 100. 

[…]