Botterrill spurs host team to victory

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This article was published 03/08/2023 (817 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ryan Botterill’s clutch hit sparked a late surge from Manitoba’s host team to start the 22U men’s national baseball championships.

Botterill, who took the mound in the third inning for Manitoba, spurred a three-run explosion in the sixth inning that gave the hosts its only lead in the contest and made the game-sealing out in the seventh to shut the door on the challenging Prince Edward Island in a 4-3 triumph at Stonewall Quarry Park on Thursday.

The tournament hosts, who regularly play as the Interlake Blue Jays of the Manitoba Junior Baseball League, moved to 1-0 in round-robin play.

They played again at 7:30 p.m. against Ontario’s primary squad. Meanwhile, Manitoba’s primary team, the Elmwood Giants, winners of the 2022 MJBL title, knocked off Québec 8-2 in its tournament debut.

Botterill, a product of Portage la Prairie, entered the game with the hosts already down 2-0 and made quick work of the P.E.I. squad, registering five strikeouts and allowing a lone run in 3 1/3 innings of work while the Manitoba offence clawed its way back.

“It was an exciting game to come to nationals, haven’t played since last year but it was really fun to get out here,” said the 20-year-old, who went to the 2022 national tournament in Halifax with the Elmwood Giants. Botterill regularly plays for the St. James A’s in the MJBL, but was added by Interlake ahead of this year’s tournament.

“When I went on the mound, it was a tight game so that was good and the boys, we played really good defence today I think and the bats came alive at the end there and a couple clutch hits to win us the game.”

Botterill added to his stellar day with two hits and a pair of RBI at the plate, including a two-out double he laced into centre-left field, driving in a pair of runs, which included the game-winning scores.

“I don’t know, I was just waiting for that pitch and that’s the pitch I wanted and it came right there so just bat the bat out there and hope for good things to happen. Not too much you can do but swing it (and) swing it hard,” said Botterill, who is the cousin of Jennifer Botterill, the three-time Olympic gold medalist with Canada’s women’s ice hockey program. Botterill will attend Youngstown State University (Ohio) in the fall for hockey.

“We definitely want to keep winning, put a lot of runs on the board and keep going and try to the finals and win this thing.”

Ethan Giesbrecht began the solid day on the mound for the hosts, striking out three batters and conceding a pair of runs in 3 1/3 innings of work.

Riley Hruska, who plays for St. James with Botterill during the regular season, also contributed a pair of hits to the offence.

“They fought back and that’s what this team has been doing all year long,” said Blue Jays head coach Dave Meyers, who is in his second year at the helm. “We get down and they come back and make it happen. I gotta give it to Ryan — threw three good innings, kept us going there and then he comes up with a double to put us ahead.

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“It’s the kind of baseball you want to be involved in, it’s a lot of fun. When the guys are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, it makes my life real easy and I like it.”

Any notion of Interlake being the doormat of the tournament as the host team is foolish in Meyers’ mind. He said he believes his squad is as capable as any to run away with the national title.

“This team, when we play decent baseball, we are as good as anybody and that’s the way it’s been all year. I’ve been with these guys — most of them — for two years and I tell ya, when they put it together we’re real hard to beat.”

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam

Joshua Frey-Sam
Reporter

Josh Frey-Sam reports on sports and business at the Free Press. Josh got his start at the paper in 2022, just weeks after graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College. He reports primarily on amateur teams and athletes in sports. Read more about Josh.

Every piece of reporting Josh produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.