The glorious Dawg Days of Summer are back.
The Okotoks Dawgs knocked off the Regina Red Sox 8-6 to win the Western Canadian Baseball League Championship series in a two-game sweep Friday night at Seaman Stadium to pick up the fifth title in franchise history and first in 10 years.
"It's awesome, we're so excited and it's the only way I wanted the summer to end," said Dawgs catcher Gavin Logan. "At the start of the year we had a talk with Mitch (Schmidt) and said we're going to put a big 19 up on the wall in the locker room and we did it.
"From the 40 of us that were here before, to the guys that are left here now with 11 position players and nine pitchers we really grinded the playoffs out. We kept rolling guys out there and they kept performing. We had a lot of our depth on our team."
Liam Rihela got the offence rolling in Game 2, hitting a moon shot solo home-run to right-field in the second inning. The Red Sox proved to be a tough out all evening and were able to put three runs on the board in the third with Adam De La Cruz's two-run double followed by a sacrifice fly as Regina took advantage of two Dawgs errors.
The momentum swung back and forth with the Dawgs tying the game at 3-3 in the fifth inning. Davis Todosichuk drove in JT Patterson with an RBI single and then Tristan Peters, the playoff MVP, slid in for the tying run while the Red Sox attempted to catch Todosichuk in run-down. In the sixth Todosichuk's infield single was enough to score Ricardo Sanchez who earlier reached on an infield single.
Regina took back the lead in the top of the seventh on one swing as Ivan Nunez hit a two-run home run to put the visitors in front 5-4.
The bottom of the eighth told the tale.
First, Sanchez delivered an RBI single up the middle to drive in pinch-runner Richard Mascarenas and even the score 5-5.
"At the beginning playing with all the guys, I was pretty nervous and made an error," said Sanchez, a Dawgs Academy infielder. "But I just told myself it's just a baseball game, it's the same game nothing changes, just breathe and relax. And it worked for me."
Okotoks' small ball acumen continued to shine.
Todosichuk put down a picture perfect bunt single on reliever Jackson Cofer down the first base line to score Sanchez.
"I knew he had a really good slider, he's a really good arm in Division 1 baseball so I knew that's probably what I was about to see," Todosichuk said. "The chance I could push it by him as a left-handed pitcher and then move my guys over and put the pressure on them, I knew I could do that right away.
"Every arm they threw tonight was unbelievable so for us to put the ball in play and play the small ball and move guys over 90-feet, every foot adds up and it truly is a game of inches. And we took more inches today."
Logan then added some much needed insurance with a two-run double to give Okotoks an 8-5 advantage."I was sitting on a slider, they threw me a few sliders through the two games," Logan said. "I kind of choked up a little bit from my previous at-bat, cut my swing down a little bit and just hoped he threw me a slider and he did."
Brandon Desjardins came in to close the game in the ninth, allowing one run. Reliever Dan Ferrario picked up the win after retiring the Sox in order in the eighth. Tanner Simpson started for Okotoks, going six innings and allowing three earned runs.
Okotoks got the early jump in the best-of-three final, a rematch of the 2011 championship, with a convincing 7-2 triumph at Regina's Currie Field on Thursday night.
Nolan Ruff pitched a complete game, allowing just two runs on seven hits while striking out five and showing his trademark command with zero walks allowed.
Okotoks made the most of its opportunities at the plate and took advantage of three Red Sox errors to give its pitcher more than ample run support.
Logan brought in Peters with an RBI single in the top of the first and in the third reached on an error to score Todosichuk. Still in the third, with Dane Tofteland at the plate Jacob Melton scored on an infield error and Will Hollis made it a three-run inning with an RBI double.
The visitors added three insurance runs in the eighth. Patterson's bunt led to a throwing error scoring both Mascarenas and Sanchez. Peters then added an RBI single, scoring Patterson to round out the seven run outburst.
"Right after (Game 1) Joe (Sergent) told us they're not going to roll over and give it to you," Patterson said. "They're going to bring the fight tomorrow and we were ready and they played a hell of a ball game. Hats off to them, they brought it to us."
The Dawgs were a perfect 5-0 at home during the post-season, clinching all three series at Seaman Stadium. Okotoks dispatched the Edmonton Prospects in the opening round and Lethbridge Bulls in the Western Final, both of which were tight three-game series to grind its way into the championship series.
Okotoks was the first seed in the Western Division by virtue of a 40-win regular season, a new franchise benchmark.
"Every game we never hung our heads about a loss or anything," said Patterson, a Dawgs Academy graduate. "We had a couple tough losses on the road during the playoffs, but we were able to just reset and refocus and treat every game with a fresh attitude and that really worked out for us.
"It's an unbelievable feeling to have accomplished this and be on a team that left that legacy and honestly the fans really deserve this one more than anyone. I can't be more happy for them, for this team and for the program and just a great all around experience for everybody."
This marks the third time the Dawgs have won the championship at the friendly confines, joining the 2007 and 2008 Dawgs teams. The 2009 championship over Melville ended on the road. The team's other title in 2004 was while the team played out of Foothills Stadium as the Calgary Dawgs.
"It couldn't mean more to us than to win it here at home," Todosichuk said. "Especially with this crowd, with these fans who understand baseball. I couldn't believe throughout the season how good the fans were in Okotoks. The opposing team makes a diving catch and they clap. You don't see that anywhere else, I've played in a lot of league and a lot of games and you don't see that."
The playoff run was put together by nothing close to a full complement of Dawgs.
Several key cogs in the lineup returned to university and college programs both before and during the post-season, including all-star infielder Jaxon Valcke, second year Dawg Riley Baasch along with starting pitchers Jared Spearing and Billy Brand.
Once again, depth shone through.
"It means everything. I'm a senior and this is how I ended my career," Todosichuk said. "The coaching staff is absolutely unbelievable, I can't say enough about them, my teammates were phenomenal. The depth that we had was just unbelievable. We truly do deserve it. I do believe that.
"We meshed right from day one as a team and as a coaching staff they laid out what they wanted from us and we were able to achieve it. If it starts from day one, you can keep the momentum throughout the whole season. That's exactly what we did."
It was bench coach Dave ‘DR’ Robb’s fifth championship with the Dawgs.
He was head coach with the then Calgary Dawgs in 2004 and on the staff in ‘07, ‘08, ‘09 and now ‘19. He said the 2019 Dawgs just refused to die.
“We just kept battling — we have won a lot of games in the eighth and ninth inning right here (Seaman Stadium),” said Robb, a member of the Dawgs Wall of Fame. “They play to the end, a lot of leadership. Davis Todosichuk, Tristan Peters… we don’t jog the bases, we run the bases all the time.”
Although it’s been a decade since he was last fitted for a championship ring, he said there were a lot of good Dawg teams since 2009, despite making early exits in the playoffs.
“It’s just everyone wanting to get over that hump ‘Okochokes,’ and I never believed in that,” Robb said. “We’ve always had championship teams, we just get to celebrate a little bit more this year.”
Executive director John Ircandia said it was the coaching staff that built the 2019 team. He was pleased to have a large number of Dawgs Academy grads on the team. Those include Tofteland, Patterson, Peters, Logan and Sanchez.
“This team really stood together,” Ircandia said. “The guys who were here really wanted to win. This championship is really about the coaching staff, the players and their perseverance.”
With files from Bruce Campbell
