For the first time in six years, the Lloydminster Twins are not North Saskatchewan River Baseball League champions.
Their Lloydminster counterpart, the Border City Blue Jays, came back from being down 3-1 in game two of the NSRBL finals, scoring four unanswered runs to win the game, and championship, 5-3 Tuesday night.
After winning the first game of the series, the Blue Jays sent 2015 NSRBL MVP Steve Latos to the mound, looking to finish off the Twins.
Latos was named league MVP after an outstanding season in which he recorded a 4-0 record with a miniscule 0.62 ERA and 61 strikeouts in just 34 innings of work. He also held his own at the plate, batting .459 with two home runs and seven RBI.
After a lead-off single by the Blue Jays’ Landon Noyes, Scott Willis hit a hard liner to second baseman Travis Kusch, who quickly fired the ball to first to double-off Noyes and erase the lead-off hit.
Latos was then hit a pitch, followed by a single by Jason Fechter putting runners on second and third with two outs, but Matt Nielson grounded out to third to end the inning.
In the Twins half of the inning, Latos dealt with control issues as he walked two batters and hit another.
A lead-off walk followed by a sac-bunt and a strike out had a runner in scoring position with two outs. Another walk then a hit batter loaded the bases. Latos regrouped, however, and struck out Kusch to end the threat.
The Blue Jays went quickly in the top of the second with a pop up to the catch followed by two strikeouts, both looking.
The Twins got on the board first in the second, after a lead-off hit batter came around to score.
Latos again had a man on second with two outs, but back-to-back singles brought home the game’s first run.
An error by the shortstop Fechter loaded the bases with two outs, but again, Latos struck out the final batter to escape the jam with minimal damage.
The Blue Jays continued to struggle offensively against Twins pitcher Steve Barbeur, as they didn’t hit a ball out of the infield in the third. Two pop ups and a ground ball had the Twins leading 1-0 heading to the bottom of the third.
Another error by the Blue Jays shortstop put Barbeur on base to lead-off the inning. After he stole second base, he advanced to third and later scored on a passed ball and a wild pitch to extend the Twins lead to 2-0. Latos issued two more walks in the inning, but struck out the final batter with runners at the corners to end the threat.
Latos helped his own cause with a lead-off triple in the top of the fourth. A sac-bunt by Fechter brought him home to give the Blue Jays their first run of the game.
The Twins got that run back in their half of the fourth when a lead-off single by Owen Hill eventually came around to score after he stole second, advance to third on a sac-bunt and scored on a passed ball. Hill would be the last Twins batter to reach base.
Things were looking bleak for the Blue Jays in the fifth as the first two batters failed to reach base. A two-out single by Ruben Baker followed by Noyes reaching on an error had two runners on with two out.
Willis then delivered the biggest hit of the game, as he smacked a double down the third base line, scoring both runners to tie the game at three.
After a 1-2-3 inning by Latos, including a pair of strikeouts, the Blue Jays came back to bat in the sixth, looking to take the lead.
The showed how patient they can be at the plate, as the first four batters of the inning walked, bringing in the go-ahead run to make the score 4-3.
Fechter, Nielson, Clayton Ermel and Rylan Urban all walked before the Twins made a pitching change, bringing in Pat Petman.
Barbeur’s final line was 4.0 innings (plus four batters), four runs (two earned) on three hits and five walks with four strikeouts.
Petman did exactly what the Twins needed him to do after coming into the game, as he got a double-play in which the runner heading for home and the batter were both out on the play. He then got Baker to ground to second to end the inning.
The Twins couldn’t get anything going in their half of the sixth as Latos was in his zone, sitting the Twins down in order.
The Blue Jays scored a big insurance run in the seventh as the lead-off batter, who was hit by a pitch, advanced to third after Petman tried to pick him off at first, missing the throw.
Latos once again helped himself out, as he smacked an RBI single to bring Willis home extending the Blue Jays lead to 5-3.
The Twins had their final chance to mount a comeback in the bottom of the seventh, but Latos wouldn’t allow it.
After striking out Hill to begin the inning, he covered first base on a groundball by Troy Winterhalt to put the Twins down to their final batter.
As he had done all season, Latos struck out Barbeur to end the game, and end the Twins run of six-straight NSRBL titles.
The Blue Jays stormed the field to celebrate with their pitcher before lining up for the traditional post-series handshake.
After receiving the championship trophy, the Blue Jays posed as a team while photos were taken by nearly a dozen people.
Another season of NSRBL baseball is in the books, and this time the final chapter was written by Border City.
