The first ever home games in team history were adisappointment for the members of the Centennial College baseball team.
In a doubleheader at Scarborough’s Neilson Park, the Colts were outscored 23-2 across the two games by the Fanshawe Falcons, putting themselves in a tough position early in the season.
“We’ve got a big learning curve coming up,” said Colts head coach Ben Anderson, after game two. “Guys got to learn batting approaches, our pitchers and catchers still need to get familiar.”
The first game was competitive until the top of the fifth inning, where one bad throw to first base completely shifted the momentum to the Falcons, who capitalized on the error and scored three runs in the inning.
Fanshawe eventually won the game 9-1, the only run for the Colts coming on an RBI double in the bottom of the sixth from Ryan Hussey.
Austin Fraser, the starting pitcher for Centennial, was not helped by errors behind him.
Game two of the doubleheader was even more difficult to the Colts fans. An evening with cold winds could not cool down the Falcon’s offence, as they came out of the gates swinging.
Fanshawe won the game 14-1 — shortened due to the OCAA mercy rule, which takes effect after five innings if the visiting team is ahead by 10 or more runs.
The Colts record now sits at 1-3 in their first OCAA season.
It was clearly visible that Centennial was lacking in depth, especially on the mound, using three pitchers in five innings, and having to convert some of their batters to pitch in the game.
“At the moment, I can’t really help depth, that’s where we are at,” said Anderson, to the Observer. “We have a fantastic head of recruiting … they are at ball games every night of the week, and we are starting to follow as many kids as we can hoping to convert them to a Centennial Colt.”
Fortunately for the Colts, reinforcements are on the way, they have a new pitcher from Japan, Shoya Hase, who was stuck at the airport for Friday’s games but who was expected to be ready to start a double-header the following day.