The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

p12 tribune i june 27 1990 stouffville squirts wwnejt title with the gala sod turning scheduled for tomorrow at 645 pm to the east of the recreation centre the stouf fville community track advisory committee are meeting fast and furi ous with town and board of educa- paul koert struck out 14 and robbie spyte and sonny acosta banged out two hits each as the stouffville choko design squirts beat st marys 61 to take the title in the new hamburg squirt tournament sunday the squirts swept their way to the championship of the tourney by win ning all three games they played and outscoring their opponents 403 stouffville thumped downey 141 in their opener as koert combined with acosta to pitch the win acosta had late inning relief help from kevin hackert in game two which was a 201 pasting of puslinch evan boyd tim smart and robbie spytz all scored three runs each in the rout the championship game was a pitchers duel until stouffville put the contest away with a threerun sixth inning in league play last week stouffville romped to a 281 win over scarbor ough as acosta fired a nphitter and jeff hassard hit a home run and a triple track sod turning thursday tion officials as well as with potential contractors and volunteers in an effort to cement plans for the project the committee which is prepared to commence actual construction of the 350000 combination track and fiewsoccertennis facility now that over 200000 has been raisedis looking for a large turnout at the sod turning we want to see as many high school and public school students as possible out for the ceremony thurs day along with soccer players and their parents said committee spokesperson ged stonehouse this is truly a community project and its going to take everyone working together to see it through stonehouse said the committee has had good cooperation from the board which owns the land and is contributing 125000 as well as the town which chipped in with 40000 they have also met with representa tives from the high school phys ed department and with officials from the whitchurchstouffville soccer club which is contributing money towards lights for the project as is the town stonehouse said that thanks to certain offers of goods and services from local corporate interests there will be significant savingsjo be gained james a rice are donating the greater part of their work which includes the engineering plans and park lane nurseries have offered 50 hours of back hoeing another interest has offered 50 hours of free bulldoz ing arid of course were still looking for more donations of contracting ser vices and equipment midgets crush newrriarket the surging stouffville midgets were momentarily arrested but came back stronger than ever in last weeks softball action the midgets who had won four straight after losing their first three games of the season dropped a 65 decision to unionville tuesday but they soon regained their touch as they crunched three home runs in an eightrun third inning enroute to an 185 trouncing of newmarket at home thursday night the stouffville squad which had fallen 43 to the same team earlier in the campaign got backtoback homers from billy pride and jason underwood in the explosive third frame with david caramanico adding another roundtripper before the inning was out dan mcneil socked a tworun shot to round out the 18 run assault basil luciano who stroked a triple scored three runs as did under wood meanwhile pitcher mike pon- gracz was holding the newmarket batters in check with a six hitter faltering only in the sixth when he was touched for four runs as the stouffville defence let up proud arabian photoannette buchkowski kim raab of cherry hill arabians in stouffville 20 horses were displayed at the event which fea- puts one of the many fine horses on display tured pyramid society straight egyptians and through its paces at an open house sunday some there was good crowd on hand to watch merchants reach finals in smiths falls the boys went up against the men at smith falls over theweekend arid fell just short of taking home the lions share of the spoils thestouffville merchants junior fastball team lost the championship game of the mens fastball tournament played in the eastern ontario town falling 40 to bern- wood an intermediate level squad the merchants shone in their five games leading to the title match against both junior and intermediate competi tion -i- in opening round pool play they bested manotick 71 dropped a 43 decision to the host team then beat the scarborough juniors 21 to advance to the playoff round the win over scarborough was significant as thatciub is expected to be one of the stronger teams the merchants will face at the ontario eliminations at grimsby july 6 to 8- stouffville got shutout pitching from scott evans and byron baranieski in a 10 victory over an intermediate team from gatineau in their first playoff match up with chris burkholder scoring on a wild pitch after stroking a double the merchants then beat the dynes 31 in the semifi nals before challenging bernwood in the championship contest baranieski captured the tournament mvp honors with a record of four wins and one loss enemies turn into teammates for merchants fred crawford the man who coached the markham midget boys softball team which kayoed stouffvilles highly touted squad last summer at the provincial eliminations believes that orice youve beat em you may as well join em so when markham failed to field a junior ball team this spring crawford emerged as manager catl myers head coach for his new stouffville merchants juniors the team is made up of the nucleus of last years stouffville midgets along with a quintet of players form the markham unit that went on to finish next to the champs from st catharines after knocking off stouffville in such dramatic fashion at the all- ontarios last year and of course the club also has scott evans who would probably have guaranteed the provincial championship to either the otpuf- fville or markham midgets last summer had he been on the roster evans was originally envisioned by 1989 stouffville midget coach howard burkholder as one half of his dream pitching tandem with the lanky byron baranieski mak ing up the other half but evans ended up touring the country with both team ontario and the canadian national youth softball team leaving burkhold- ers outfit with but one top notch chucker this year however the dynamic duo is together at last and that spells bad news for hitters at this yearsjunior eliminations in grimsby the weekend of july 6 when myers put his team together back in april he was thinking long range hoping to have a crack squad with which to host the ontario junior champi onships in 1992 but myers was emphatic when jilt l i9j nal femjrtrfv notes bruce stapiey he said his boys would be compet itive right off the bat and the record has born him out so far the combined stoiiffville- markham roster comprised of almost all firstyear juniors has yet to lose a game against junior level teams playing out of the oshawa and district mens fast- ball league which has hooked up with the richmond hill mens loop for cross league competition the merchants have looked sharp sporting an overall record of six wins twblosses and two ties rttvlojiaxftjjsfiajejfotefc mediate teams coach crawfordsaid that realis tically his team appears to be about two good bats away from serious contention at the upcom ing provincials at grimsby we can match any team with our pitching and defence he said but our hitting is our weak ness we dont have the bats to come back if we get down by too much and then theres the matter of that fateful high school ball game a month or so back when craw fords own son craig who played with evans on the team ontario entry that took the canada games crown in saskatoon last summer collided with merchants team mate mike clausner as the two of them chased a fly ball ironically it came in a game in which the titlebound stouffville district secondary school spar- janscontainingmany merchant players were knocking off craw ford and clausner s markham district high school unit craig who has been fitted with a steel plate in his left leg to assist in the healing oftwo badly broken bones is gone for the season clausner who suffered a broken knee cap in the mishap may also be history for the 1990 campaign naturally the loss of two of his regulars has coach crawford a lit tle subdued at the start of the season i was confident wed go a long way but after losing two key players well however as yogi always used to say- if aint over til its over and anything can happen under that hot july sun just ask the members of the merchants who had their hearts broken last summer by five boys with whom they are sharing bench space this season v feaaafe