Jamie Boyd Memorial tournament held in Tavistock
The Tavistock Athletics U20 team was one of four to compete in the annual Jamie Boyd Memorial Tournament last weekend.
The event was a four-team round-robin with each team playing one game Friday night and two on Saturday with the semi-finals and final Sunday afternoon. Rostock defeated Plattsville in the championship game 4-3 in extra innings.
“There was actually a decent turnout of local people from Tavistock who came to watch the championship even though we weren’t playing in it. The support the town showed to the Boyd was amazing to see,” said Tavistock coach McGreggor Ramseyer.
The Athletics lost their three round-robin games but played better in a 6-0 loss to Rostock in a semi-final matchup.
“We had trouble getting hits, but our pitcher Grady Ryksen threw fantastic for us and kept the game scoreless for the first three innings despite our troubles putting many hits together. We played great defensively in the semi-final as well, so the coaching staff is hoping that's a sign of good things to come,” explained Ramseyer.
In past years, Tavistock Minor Baseball has run this tournament with five or six teams but due to factors out of their control, the field was limited to four teams this year.
“We hope there will continue to be interest from our neighbouring centres in attending this tournament next year and we can increase the number of teams back to five or six. The OASA Eliminations are almost always in early July, so this tournament works out to be a great tune-up event for most teams to prepare.”
That tournament is set for July 5-7 in Cobourg which will determine what teams represent Ontario at the Canadian Championships in August.
The Jamie Boyd Memorial Tournament was organized by the Tavistock Minor Ball Association's executive committee with help from the head of the group’s tournament committee, Jeff Roth.
Ramseyer added a special thank you to Dennis Roth who organized the umpires for the weekend and the U15 Athletics who volunteered all weekend to maintain the diamonds and keep the large water jugs on the benches filled with cold water and ice for the teams.
“Dave Nahrgang, Corey McCann and Keith Zehr scheduled the U15 players in shifts and kept other volunteers organized during the weekend and they deserve a lot of credit too.”
There was an opening ceremony on Saturday morning where the four teams were joined on the diamond by Boyd's family – his wife, Tracey, son, Tye, daughter, Shelbie Hale, and son-in-law, Jordan Hale, along with granddaughters Layla and Darla.
Lee Griffi, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Wilmot-Tavistock Gazette
