Expos silence Cannons to extend win streak
The Niagara Falls Expos claimed the top spot in the Niagara District Baseball Association senior men’s division for the second week in a row.
They are also the first team to reach 10 wins and it took the defending playoff champions just 13 games to get there.
Three victories during the past week — against the Merritton Alliance, Rose City Thorns, Fort Erie Cannons — means that not only are the Expos winning big games, they’re winning lots of games.
A season-high eight in a row if you’re keeping score at home.
The Welland Chiefs also deserve props for knocking off both their opponents. An 8-1 win over the Thorold Fantoms, highlighted by a Scott Cole home run, on Tuesday followed by a 3-2 victory the St. Catharines Cobras the following night meant another sweep week for the Chiefs, who improved their record to 9-3.
Fort Erie, 8-4 in league play; slid back one spot this week, dropping to third place one game back of Welland.
An 8-4 win against the Merritton Tuesday was followed one night later by a loss to the Expos by the same score.
Fort Erie still leads the league in runs per game, but the Cannons have some work to do if they want to win it all.
The Cannons are 0-3 against the Expos and they won’t resume their rivalry until the final game of the regular season, Sunday, Aug. 13, at Chippawa Lions Park in Niagara Falls.
The Rose City Thorns, 7-6; had an up-and-down week. They beat the Niagara Falls Falcons Juniors on Friday night, before getting doused by the red-hot Expos two days later.
Interesting to note for the Thorns is that six of their remaining 11 games are against teams trailing them them in the standings.
Two losses for Merritton, 4-7; and just one for the Falcons Juniors, 5-5; Cobras, 2-10; and Fantoms, 0-8; creates an interesting situation for the last three places in the standings.
This is important because the pennant winner receives a bye in the first round of the playoffs, due to the Falcons Juniors playing their post-season in the junior A division. The seven other clubs battle it out for the senior men’s championship.
Game of the Week
Our feature game this week is between the two heaviest hittiers in the league, the Niagara Falls Expos and Fort Erie Cannons.
The Niagara Parkway rivalry always draws a good crowd and Wednesday night’s game at Oakes Park in Fort Erie did not disappoint.
The Niagara Falls Expos doubled Fort Erie 8-4 extending their win streak to a league-best eight games.
“We’re hot right now, we’re playing well,” Expos coach Bob Ethier said. “If we keep playing the way we are, unless we beat ourselves, we’re going to be really tough to beat.”
The Expos, who had a threegame winning streak, is the only team to score more than six runs against the Cannons team all season.
Expos pitcher Ryan Langdon threw a complete game for the second time in his many starts.
“I want to go the distance, I don’t want anybody to take the ball from me up there,” Langdon said. “I used to close a lot last year, so I kind of have that mentality still.
“When it comes to the last innings, you got to kind of turn it up.”
Langdon added a solo home run in the fifth inning, which was also the winning run.
“It’s always a good feeling when you can square one up, there’s no better feeling in sports,” he said.
Expos jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the first four innings and would never look back. Offensively, it was Langdon. 3-for-3, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI; Cam Cartwright, 2-for4, 2 RBI,and Seth Long, 1-for-3, 2 RBI; doing most of the damage.
Garrett Fisher would tack on a RBI in the fourth as seven runs, one unearned, were charged to Cannons starting pitcher Matt Pine, who was relieved by Pat Giampaolo in the fourth innining.
Giampaolo allowed five hits and two walks in three innings of scoreless relief while striking out one.
Fort scored runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings off the bats of Serge Gervais, 1-for-3, 2 RBI; Kris Hodges, 1-for-3, RBI) and Giampaolo, 0-for-3, RBI; but could otherwise get nothing going. They scattered six hits across the board and struck out 10 times.
“We didn’t get the timely hits, kind of ran into a couple of outs on our own,” Cannons manager Justin Hall said. “It was pretty ugly. Lots of walks, lots of errors, lots of passed balls.
“It just didn’t go our way.”