Bantam coach, Rob Casselman gets cut, hair cut that is

The 67 players in the 44th annual Ladies Valley League Golf Competition had to battle for every inch of roll they could get on the rain-drenched Summer Heights Golf Course on Sunday, and in the end it was the home team claiming a very healthy win.

The hosting Summer Heights team put up just 940 strokes to reclaim the Valley League title after losing it to Cedar Glen in Williamsburg last summer.

Finishing well back of this year’s champs in second place was Prescott with 988 strokes. Third spot went to Iroquois at 1006, Morrisburg was fourth at 1023 and Cedar Glen was last with 1042. 

The Ladies Valley League consists of 13-player teams, plus one spare. There are three players in each of A-B-C-D flight with the two best scores in each flight counted towards the team total. Also counting in the team total are the senior players’ scores.

Stephanie White led the Summer Heights team to victory with an 83, and Helen Greer-Doll counted the second A flight score with a 91.

Ann Leduc counted a 96 in B flight and Irma Tyrell added a 102, while in C flight, Elizabeth Marjerrison turned in a 100 and Denise Levac a 106. 

Alice Grant led D flight with a 127, and Kay Vallee had a 130. Gail Adams shot a 105 in the senior spot.

Also playing for the team, with their scores not counting were France Longtin in A flight, Nicole Landriault in B, Lynda Lafleche in C and Sheila Cadieux in D. June Eden played as their spare.

In individual play, the Summer  Heights team won three of the five low gross trophies

The low shooter of the day was Stephanie White of Summer Heights who posted an 83 to claim the Trudy Beavers Trophy for low gross in A flight.

Ann Leduc posted a 96 to win the Phyllis Locke B flight  Trophy and teammate Elizabeth Marjerrison won the Mildred and Dick Atchison C flight trophy with a 100. 

Preventing a Summer Heights sweep in the flights was Liz Asselin of Iroquois, who won  D low gross and the Bank of Montreal trophy with a 124.

Net wins went to  Helen Doll Greer (91-75 net) in A flight, Mary Jane Baker of Prescott (103-75 net) in B flight, Denis Levac of Summer Heights (106-73 net) in C flight and Sharon Landry of Prescott (73 net) in D flight.

Carole Parent of Cedar Glen posted a 94 to win the senior low gross Howard Wallace Trophy and Cathy Marston of Iroquois won the Jennie Clifford Memorial Trophy for low senior net with  a 106 for an 83 net.

Judy Eden of Summer Heights was the low spare with a 99 and  Anita Cooper, Morrisburg had the low net shooting a 108 for a 79 net.

Low gross shooters for each of the teams were: Carole Parent, 94, Cedar Glen; Nancy Barkley, 92 Iroquois; Lori-Anne Davies, 95, Morrisburg; Mia Henderson, 90, Prescott; Stephanie White, 83, Summer Heights.

[…]

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.

[…]

 

For what coach Thom Racine referred to as a must-win game, the Morrisburg Junior B Lions got off on the right foot here Friday night with a 5-2 win over the Char-Lan Rebels. But it was all down hill all the way, after that.

Unable to rub the sleep from their eyes Saturday morning, they gave up a 6-3 loss to the Rideau Division’s fourth place South Grenville Rangers at the Rideau-St. Lawrence showcase event in Winchester.

Then Sunday night on Cornwall Island, they followed it up with a 7-5 loss to the St. Lawrence Division’s last place Akwesasne Wolves. 

Racine admitted everyone was pumped for the must-win against the Rebels and didn’t save anything for the challenges against the Rangers and the Wolves.

As for Saturday’s game, both the Rangers and the Lions had games Friday night and it was tough for both to play first thing Saturday morning. He said simply, “they showed up and we didn’t. I could live with the South Grenville loss. They responded better than us.”

But he says the Akwesasne loss was tough and could eventually come back to haunt the Lions as they make their bid to catch the Char-Lan Rebels for the fourth and final St. Lawrence Division playoff spot.

“Akwesasne is playing for their pride right now. I told the guys if you don’t get ready to play them, they will beat you.”

“We have two games left against Char-Lan and one against Akwesasne, so there could be our season. The boys knew it. It was the quietest in our dress room that it’s been all year. ”

Although the Lions enjoyed the rare treat of a full squad for most of the weekend, Racine said it hurt when the two Veenstras, Clarke and Drew, were unable to play against Akwesasne as they had to return to Ottawa in preparation for their return to school on Monday morning. 

On a brighter note, the Lions plugged a hole on their defence with the signing of Joel Marleau, who has been with the Cornwall Colts.

The Akwesasne win pulled the Wolves to within eight points of the Lions who trail the fourth place Rebels by one point. With the chance that the Wolves could lay claim to a chunk of fourth place, Racine says, that any hopes the Lions might have had to deal with the Wolves for players by this past Tuesday’s January 10 deadline pretty much went out the door.

He said Monday, that it was unlikely the Lions would be make any other pre-deadline changes.

Friday night in Morrisburg, the Lions and the Rebels played to a 1-1 first period draw. At the end of the second period they were still even, at 2-2.

It was three unanswered Lions goals in the third that did the talking and cemented the 5-2 win.

Michel Lefebvre kicked it off on the Lions power play at 9:34, with help from Sylvester Bzdyl and Drew Veenstra.

Marc Antoine Kamel (from Brayden Girard) made it 4-2 at 11:29, and Lance Hodgson pushed it to 5-2 at 14:38 with Ryan Dunbar and Zach Sequin providing the assists.

Alex Steingruber (from Lefebvre and Michael Keenan) scored for the Lions in the first period, and Chris Rutley got goal number two in the second period, with Clarke and Drew Veenstra assisting.

Lions goaltender, Mikael Dion, gave up the Rebels’ goals to Grant MacDougal in the first period and Lawson MacDonald in the second.

Goaltender Ryan Cooper handled Saturday’s action as the Lions and Rangers played to a 2-2 draw in the first period.

The Rangers went up 3-2 at 6:50 of the second period, but the Lions kept it even with a Ryan Ward power play goal (from Rutley and Keenan)at 8:21.

It was a short-handed goal, two in fact, that made the difference as the Rangers charged ahead with three unanswered counters, all scored in the second period, for the 6-3 win.

Michael Poapst (from Brayden Girard and Keenan) and Keenan (from Steingruber and Michaels Paquette) scored the Lions first period goals.

Sunday night against the Wolves, the Lions led after 20 minutes of play on a Michael Poapst power play goal assisted by Paquette and Ward.

Lefebvre (from Steingruber and Bzdyl) put them up 2-0 early in the second period.

Although Amo Connor cut their advantage to 2-1, a mere 35 seconds later, the Lions hung in with a Lance Hodgson goal assisted by Kamel and Girard.

A Wolves power-play goal at 15:12 again sliced into the Lions lead, and 23 seconds later they tied it 3-3.

The Hodgson then stepped in to again put the Lions up, Ty Hodgson popping the puck into the net with a Lance Hodgson assist.

Then it was back in the Wolves court as they used the final three minutes of the frame to push the Wolves ahead 5-4.

It was also at the end of the period, that the Lions lost the services of goaltender Mikael Dion. 

“Mikael drew a match penalty. They (the Wolves) got under his skin and unfortunately, he lost his cool and reacted poorly. So we went into the third period, behind 5-4, with four minutes of penalties to kill and Ryan Cooper in net. But we tied the game with a short handed goal thanks to Ryan Ward working extra hard.”

The goal came less than two minutes in when Ward set up Sylvester Bzdyl.

But that was it. Matthew Morin, on a break away, beat Cooper at 11:10 of the third for a 6-5 lead and Keith Sloan made it 7-5 with 3:51 left on the clock.

Coming up this weekend, the Lions are at home for two games.

Friday night they host the St. Lawrence Division’s second place Casselman Vikings at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday, the first place Winchester Hawks  will be in town for a 2:30 p.m. start.

“It will be a tough weekend. We will be playing without Mikael, as he will probably get three games from the suspension,” says Racine. “But I have total confidence in Ryan. He came in, in relief Sunday night and played well.”

With the Vikings trailing the Hawks by just two points in the division standings, both will be playing hard for wins.

 

[…]