Twins split at Wood Bat
The ping of aluminum was replaced with the crack of maple at Memorial Park this past weekend as the Glacier Twins hosted the annual Wood Bat tournament.
The AA Legion Twins split their games in the event, topping Mission Valley 10-3 Friday afternoon, and later falling to the Calgary Redbirds 5-3 in the evening game. The Twins A team beat Eureka on Friday and fell to Calgary on Saturday.
"I liked our effort with the wood bats," Twins coach Lindsay Fansler said after the tourney. "We came out and played well. It was a successful weekend for both clubs."
Trading metal bats for wood sticks forced all of the teams to play small ball and work on the nuts and bolts of baseball, he said.
"It's good for the kids," Fansler said. "They realize they have to play more fundamentally sound. There's more stealing, bunting and hit and runs. But that's kind of our style of baseball anyway."
The AA Twins opened the tourney against Mission Valley looking to revenge an 11-5 trouncing from the Mariners last week.
Veteran ace Kyle Knox, back from playing with Crown College in Minnesota, pitched seven strong innings and tallied eight strikeouts to keep the Mariners' offense in check while the Twins' bats caught fire early.
Jeremy Nielsen started the first inning with a lead-off walk, Wade Martinson reached on a bunt, and Knox singled to load the bases.
Martinson scored the game's first run on a wild pitch when he stole home. Dustin VonFeldt followed with a walk to load the bases again, setting up Carl Talsma's RBI single to make the score 2-0.
Cody Hill then blasted an RBI single to center, and VonFeldt scored on another wild pitch to cap the inning's four runs on three hits.
The Twins went on to add one run in the second and three more in the fourth.
Knox helped cap off his win on the mound with a 2-RBI stand-up triple to left in the sixth inning that put the Twins on top 10-3. He finished off the Mariners in the seventh with two Ks.
"Kyle had another good outing," Fansler said. "He threw the entire seven, and we'll be looking for him to contribute like that all season."
In the nightcap against a tough Calgary team that featured mostly 18-year-olds, the two evenly matched teams traded scoreless innings until the Redbirds tallied their first hit in the fourth inning. That set off a mini avalanche of runs for the Canadian team, as the Redbirds put four on the board off four hits.
The Twins made a nice rally attempt in the sixth to close the gap. With the bases loaded and one out on the board, Hill earned a walk to score the Twins' first run.
Geoff Streeter then knocked an RBI-single to right to score VonFeldt. Streeter was 3-for-3 in the game and emerged as a player Fansler says he will look to for offense throughout the season.
After Streeter's RBI, Devyn Rocker added another run with a single to left, forcing Calgary to switch pitchers.
After the time-out, Nielsen stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and smashed a drive to right field. The hit looked poised to drop, but Calgary's right fielder laid out to snag the ball inches before it fell to the turf for the third out.
Calgary added another run in the seventh to seal the victory, but Fansler said he liked Glacier's spirit in the comeback attempt.
"Being down 4-0 and not giving up shows our tenacity," Fansler said. "If Nielsen's ball drops, we win that game. That was the best pitching we've seen all season."
The Twins faces the Redbirds again on Friday when they play in the Canadian Days tournament in Kalispell.