The Huronia Grey Jays travelled to the Barrie Sports Complex to play a doubleheader against Barrie Blue, one of the league’s top teams.
The Jays gave Barrie all they could handle in the first game with Barrie initially taking a 7-2 lead after two innings with two in the first and five in the second. The Grey Jays defence then held Barrie scoreless in the third and after scoring one in the third and the maximum five in the top of the fourth the Jays had an 8-7 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth.
The strength of Barrie prevailed at that point scoring the maximum five runs in both the 4th and 5th innings. But the Grey Jays did not give up, scoring the maximum 5 in the 6th to tighten the score to 17-15 in favour of Barrie.
Against one of the league leaders, this was a strong outing by the Jays and normally would have won against most teams. However, the game ended at 19-15 for Barrie Blue. The bottom of the order of John Fisher (4 for 4), Randy Massicotte (3 for 4) and Ken Lockhart (4 for 4) shone in the Jays offensive effort getting 12 hits and scoring nine of the 15 runs.
The second game started well, but ended controversially when the teams could not reconcile the scoring.
The Jays had trailed Barrie for most of the game until the top of the 7th when they needed a big inning to tie the score. By rule, a team can only score a maximum five runs in each of the first six innings, but the 7th is an open inning to allow the team that is behind a chance to tie or win the game.
And the Grey Jays attempted to make a big comeback in the 7th by batting around the order with all 12 Jays getting a turn at bat. Tom Robitaille provided the major catalyst in the inning with an impressive inside-the-park home run.
The Jays scored eight runs in the inning and seemed to have tied the game. But the Barrie scorer immediately insisted they had won 18-13.
By rule, the home-team, in this case Barrie, sends in the final score and there was no opportunity to work out where the discrepancy in scoring may have occurred. However, the Jays could take consolation in how well they played and showed they could give one of the top teams a tough battle.
Simcoe-Muskoka League Standings
Barrie Green 9 wins 1 loss
Barrie Blue 8 wins 2 losses
Orillia 7 wins 3 losses
Grey Jays 3 wins 7 losses
Wasaga 2 wins 8 losses
Bracebridge 1 win 9 losses
