Blast from the Past – Our Archived Stories
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Help Wanted!
We definitely don't get a lot of 'complaints' from our Hawks families - the huge majority of our players and parents are very positive, but we could absolutely use more volunteers.
We appreciate the many hours that our team coaches and coordinators put in - we couldn't do it without you.
Where we are currently lacking is volunteers at the association level - people to help us get our teams organized and ready to play.
Up to this point, Greely Hawks Baseball has mostly been a 'family run business', with 2 of us doing all of the organizing and coordinating with the help of 2 other very helpful volunteers working as our Treasurer/Registrar (Wendy Wallace) and Fundraising and Tournament Coordinator (Christine Halpern).
As you know, we are a fairly small and close-knit organization so we don't need a lot of 'staff' but if we work together, nobody will have a big job.
Here are some volunteer positions that are currently vacant:
- Equipment Manager (take care of equipment, distributing to teams, collecting, replacing as needed)
- Uniform Manager (take care of Greely Hawks uniforms, distributing, collecting, replacing if needed) - filled - thank you Todd Bush
- Umpire Scheduler (keep track of umpires, including experience and skill levels, and schedule 2 umpires per game) - filled - thank you Christine Halpern.
Please contact me if you have any questions about these positions and if you would like to volunteer to help us out.
May 12, 2011
Local Little League Baseball Blog
An executive member and coach in the Pinecrest Little League, Craig Alain, has created this very informative blog about Little League Baseball for the Ottawa area...
Thanks To Our Valued Sponsors...
We were able to provide new uniforms for our two older teams, updated equipment for all our teams as needed, food for the teams' year-end parties, and a very cool customized Greely Hawks drawstring bag for every Spring & Summer player!
So a special thank you to:
Wallace Automobiles (Bruce Wallace)
BMO Financial Group (Ernie Schroeder)
Urbandale (Patty Bisson)
Councillor Doug Thompson
Greely Lions Club
We appreciate your support to help us provide a better baseball experience for the kids in our community!
April 21, 2013
Hawks coaches get some pro training from Little League Canada's National Coach!
Almost every one of our 11 Greely Hawks coaches took time out of their busy lives to take in some intense 4-hour coach training from the infamous Al Herback, Little League Canada's National Coach who was brought in from Calgary by our league!
It was fantastic to see so many of our coaches there --- more than any other association! It's cool that they're so devoted to learning how to teach our 50 Hawks players the right way to play the game of baseball, as well as the game of life.
Al's first such clinic was in 1972 -- so he's been teaching coaches like us for over 40 years!!!
Thanks again to all our coaches for coming out and representing our Hawks so well, it's much appreciated!
Craig Richer
VP Baseball Operations
baseball@greelyhawks.ca
May 14, 2013
Cam's The Man!
Underage Big Leaguer Cam Bishop smacks an over-the-fence bomb HR, and picks up the win on the mound in Greely's exciting 16-14 comeback win over Glebe in our season/home opener!
June 11, 2013
Greely is once again hosting the Major Playoffs at Andy Shields Park!
This Saturday June 15th, our Major Defending Champion Greely Hawks are welcoming the other 3 Major teams in our league for the Semi-Finals and Finals!
As usual, there will be a Canteen/BBQ, 50/50 draws, and the always fun Skills Competition!
Semi-Finals
- 9:30am #4 Russell @ #1 Casselman, Diamond 2
- 10:00am #3 Greely Hawks @ #2 Embrun, Diamond 1
- 12:30pm SKILLS COMPETITION!
Finals
- 1:30pm Consolation "Bronze" Game, Diamond 2
- 2:00pm Championship Game, Diamond 1
If any of you families/players from our Greely Hawks teams at any age level can volunteer some time to help us out, it would be much appreciated. Please contact our Event Coordinator Christine Halpern at christine@greelyhawks.ca
Thanks and GO HAWKS GO!!
June 29, 2012
Senior CRLL Greely Hawks ready to fly in Summer Interlock "A" season again!
Like we have the last couple of seasons, our Senior Greely Hawks from the Spring will be continuing on in the Summer D2-D6 Interlock "A" season.
While in the past we haven't won too many of these Summer games against the other association's All-Star teams, it's still a great experience for our players to face top players/teams and to play in different D2 parks in Nepean, Pinecrest/CFR, and Kanata along with the games against familiar foes from our D6 in South Ottawa, Orleans, Russell, and the Glebe.
To fill out our Summer roster, our Hawks are very happy to add Ryan Robineau who got the call-up to the "big club" from our Junior Hawks Spring team, along with rookie recruits Cam Bishop (from Vernon) and Carter Matte (from Osgoode) who both played with a couple of our boys on their successful St. Mark High School ball team – all 3 Senior rookies are very excited to be joining our squad.
The Spring players continuing on for the Summer CRLL Hawks are Tristan Timm, Brad Bisson, Alex Seguin, Eric Bekkers, Mitchell Clarke, Kenny Beaton, Alek Berthelet, Ryan Gill and Nolan Gillis.
Looking forward to another fun season!
June 20, 2012
Our Hawks show well in "A" tryouts, 18 of them made the Carleton-Russell Aces!
In this 2nd season of Spring House League ball followed by Competitive Summer ball, our Greely Hawks did a great job at the "A" tryouts for the CRLL Aces District Playdown/Summer teams! The intense tryouts took place a couple of weeks ago --- and in the end, 18 of our boys will be taking part in the competitive experience of the District Playdown tournaments along with a 12 game regular Competitive "A" season against the best of the best of the City teams!
Congratulations to the following Aces for 2012:
- MINOR – Colby Schroeder, Owen Seaman, David Denis, Jack Wallace, Tyler Boyd, Jack Armstrong and Ryan Carolan (and head coach/manager Ernie Schroeder)
- MAJOR – Jeremie Goyer, Ryan Lafrance and Michael Armstrong (and assitant coach Rick Lafrance)
- JUNIOR – William Lachapelle, Stephen Scharfe, Grant Wallace, Sean Armstrong, and Doug Blad (and head coach/manager Hugues Lachapelle)
- SENIOR – Matt Williams, Tanner Schroeder, and Cam Lafrance
More news to come very soon on the competitive "A" Senior Summer Interlock League...
In the meantime, congrats to all the Aces, we're sure you'll do our Greely Hawks proud in your upcoming District Tournaments and Summer Leagues!
April 14, 2013
Popular warm-up jackets available again!
Cleats and batting gloves on sale!
Back by popular demand, we are able to get these "KEWL" warm-up jackets again from our terrific supplier Steve Gamble at Russell Pro Shop (www.russellpro.ca).
It takes 2-4 weeks from when the order is placed --- so if we place our order soon, then there's a chance you could have your jackets before the first pitch of the 2013 season!
Also, some of you may have seen the nice yellow/gold baseball high socks that many of our players have been wearing the past few seasons --- if your son or daugther would like some, we can also get those through Steve for $7/pair.
Cost is reduced this year!
- $55 with no name on front
- $62 with a name or coach on front
Also, some of you may have seen the nice yellow/gold baseball high socks that many of our players have been wearing the past few seasons --- if your son or daugther would like some, we can also get those through Steve for $7/pair.
They also have new baseball cleats on sale for 40% off as well as Louisville black/white batting gloves on sale for 50% off!
Just make sure to mention that you're with our Greely Hawks to get those discounts as well as our association's special pricing on any item in the store!
Contact Craig Richer at baseball@greelyhawks.ca if you would like a jacket.
June 25, 2012
Our Greely Hawks really are MAJOR Champs!
After successfully defending their Pinecrest Tournament Major Championship a few weeks ago, Rick Lafrance's squad were really riding some great momentum going into the Carleton-Russell Little League Spring Playoffs!Greely finished in 2nd place in the regular season which pitted them against the strong Embrun team in the Semi-Finals earlier this week. Facing one of the league's best pitchers, our Hawks were on fire as they had plenty of hits along with some superb pitching en route to a solid 9-4 win. In the other Semi-Final between the two Casselman teams, there was a pretty big upset as the top seed team were knocked out for their chance to be in the Finals.
On Championship Sunday hosted by our Hawks organization in Greely, the morning Consolation Game saw the top seed Casselman #2 dispose of the Embrun team in convincing fashion. Then in the afternoon, it was the final battle everyone was waiting to see – Casselman #1 lead by the CRLL Aces head coach/manager Geoff Séguin against our Greely Hawks lead by Geoff's Aces assistant coach Rick Lafrance.
Our Hawks starting pitcher, Jeremie Goyer, had extra incentive going into this showdown as he's actually from Casselman and had the chance to win a Championship against many of his old teammates and coaches. And Jeremie didn't disappoint as he only allowed 1 run over 5 solid innings while striking out MANY batters! This game was tight for a few innings as the Casselman starting pitcher was strong too, but our Hawks managed to squeak out 3 runs over his 4+ innings, then Greely exploded for 4 runs in the 5th inning making the score 7-1 going into the last inning. Long-time Hawk, Michael Armstrong, pitched for Greely in that last inning and he and his teammates were able to seal the win and the Championship!
Congrats to all our Hawks players and coaches seen in the photo: Colby Schroeder, Michael Armstrong, Braedan Charbonneau, Will Keon, Ben Halpern, Owen Charbonneau, Devon Poirier, Tyler Preston, Ryan Lafrance, Jeremie Goyer, Lucien Hartell, and Johnny Hindriksen along with coaches Rick Lafrance, Dale Poirier, and Ernie Schroeder. Missing from the photo and weekend was veteran Hawks player Payton Melvin but he contributed a lot to the team's success this season.
Our Minor Hawks didn't get the win in the Final, but played their best game of the season!
Our 3rd place Minor Hawks kind of limped into the playoffs as they struggled down the stretch after a strong start to their season. But head coach/manager Marc Seaman was thrilled with how his boys came together in their 2 playoff games!
First, in the Semi-Final against the favoured Russell team, our Hawks squeaked out the upset victory which vaulted them to the Championship Game against the powerhouse 1st-place Casselman team. It was pretty cool to see both the Minor and Major Championship Games being played side by side on our diamonds both pitting Greely against Casselman for league supremacy!
This Minor Final game was also a pitching duel as Greely's ace pitcher all season, David Denis, was battling pitch-for-pitch against Casselman's excellent hurler. The game was very tight for a few innings with Casselman holding a slight 2-1 advantage, but then a couple of fortunate Casselman hits found holes and plated 3 more runs and our Hawks tried hard and had their chances, but couldn't manage another run.
After the game, coach Marc said that it was his team's best game of the season and wishes they had played like that all season long, it was a joy for him to be a part of that game with his team.
One more thing our Minor Hawks can be proud of is they won the team Running Relay Race portion of our Skills Competition! They were very exciting races and it was fun to see our host team come out on top!
Congrats to all our Minor Hawks players and coaches: Zach Bush, Owen Seaman, David Denis, Jack Armstrong, Jack Wallace, Tyler Boyd, Zachary Cape, Ryan Carolan, Jayden Haight, Cameron Hutchinson, Jack Karran, Colin Nisbet, Jakob Vriend and Samuel Karran along with coaches Marc Seaman, Todd Bush and Tristan Timm.
Thanks again to all our terrific volunteers, especially Christine Halpern & Karen Crotty-Charbonneau!
Once again our baseball day hosted by our Greely Hawks organization went off without a hitch, and it's thanks in large part to our very appreciated volunteers! First and foremost, a very special thanks once again goes to two of our Hawks' Executives Christine Halpern (christine@greelyhawks.ca) and Karen Crotty-Charbonneau(karen@greelyhawks.ca) who work so hard before, during and after these events to bring all the fun to our kids! Without those two, we simply wouldn't be able to pull off such successful events. Thanks also to volunteers Louis Armstrong, Lorne Hartell, Paul Charbonneau, Colin & Marie José Timm, Wendy Wallace, Diane Charlebois, Dave Halpern, Wayne Beaton, Karen & Ed Hindriksen, Jen Vriend, Jen Haight, along with our Senior Hawks Tristan Timm, Eric Bekkers, Cam Lafrance and Ryan Gill. We would also like to thank all of you from our Greely Hawks family who generously donated many food and drink items for our canteen, as well as the Greely Firefighters for kindly lending us their BBQ. And last but certainly not least, thanks to our umpires for the day – Marc Lalonde, Eric Bekkers, Kenny Beaton and Gab Lafrance – you all did a great job!
A sincere thanks to all of you, we really appreciate it! – Kim & Craig Richer (president@greelyhawks.ca)
June 19, 2012
Minor & Major Championship Day this Sunday in Greely!
Our Greely Hawks are hosting the Minor and Major final playoff games this Sunday at Andy Shields Park in Greely, and it happens to be that both our Minor Hawks and our Major Hawks won their respective Semi-Final games this week, so both are in their league Championship Game on Sunday afternoon!
We are also hosting the two age level's Consolation Games in the morning and a Skills Competition for all 4 Minor teams and 4 Major teams where the players can display their running speed around the bases and their hitting prowess off a pitching machine!
Here's Sunday's schedule of events:
- 9:30am – MINOR Consolation Game on Diamond #3, Embrun @ Russell
- 9:45am – MAJOR Consolation Game on Diamond #1, Embrun @ Casselman #2
- 11:30am to 1:00pm – BBQ lunch and Skills Competition
- 1:30pm – MINOR Championship Game on Diamond #3, Greely @ Casselman
- 2:00pm – MAJOR Championship Game on Diamond #1, Casselman #1 @ Greely
Looking forward to another fun day at the park in Greely!
June 3, 2012
Major Hawks are back-to-back Pinecrest Tournament Champions!
For the 2nd year in a row, our Major Hawks coached by Rick Lafrance capture the Pinecrest Championship! It took extra innings in their 1st game on Saturday against CRLL rival Casselman, but our Hawks never looked back after that winning their next 2 games to take the title!
Congrats to all the players there in this Championship photo: Colby Schroeder, Owen Charbonneau, Braedan Charbonneau, Ryan Lafrance, Lucien Hartell, Johnny Hindriksen, Michael Armstrong, Jeremie Goyer, Ben Halpern, Payton Melvin, Tyler Preston, and Devon Poirier along with coaches Rick Lafrance, Ernie Schroeder and Dale Poirier.
Junior Hawks also have a successful tournament!
Our Junior Manager Rob Scharfe was especially proud of his boys as they won 3 of their 4 games in the tournament, even though they only had 8 players for most of the games. Unfortunately, our Jr team had to forfeit their spot in the finals because we would have been down to just 7 players, but it was still a very successful and fun tournament! Great job by these 9 players who were there contributing to our Hawks success: Grant Wallace, Stephen Scharfe, Jackson Fix, Alex Hughes, Colin Shibley, Sean Armstrong, Bryce Kuhn, Ryan Robineau and Malcolm McMurray along with coaches Rob Scharfe, Mike Armstrong and Brian McMurray.
Minor Hawks have less luck, but still had fun!
Our Minor team had more trouble with the weather than anyone else as the Pinecrest Minor diamond didn't drain well at all. Their 1st game was delayed from the morning to the late afternoon on Saturday, and unfortunately our boys eventually lost that game. Then their Sunday morning game was rain-delayed after only 1-2 innings, and when they finally got it going, our Hawks lost that one too. But there were lots of smiles seen on our boys so they seemed to have a good time despite the obstacles. Good job on still having fun to the boys who were there: Jack Armstrong, Tyler Boyd, Zach Bush, Zachary Cape, Ryan Carolan, David Denis, Jayden Haight, Cameron Hutchinson, Colin Nisbet, Owen Seaman, Jakob Vriend, Jack Wallace along with coaches Marc Seaman and Todd Bush.
April 27, 2012
Click for PDF Flyer for Hawks Opening Day
Greely Hawks Opening Day!
All 4 of our Greely Hawks teams will each be hosting teams from Russell, Casselman or Embrun for our big Opening Day!
See the game schedule at the bottom of this page, or in our Calendar in the left side-bar menu.
For the morning games, we'll have some coffee, muffins and Timbits generously donated by the new Tim Hortons at Findlay Creek.
And for lunch, we'll have a BBQ with some hot dogs donated to every player that day by the new Fresh Co at Findlay Creek. We will also have food, drinks and treats for sale.
The FAT CATS have donated 2 season's passes as a Grand Prize! Come out and get in on the draw to win!
As well, the Fat Cats have extended their offer (that had expired on March 31st) to all who attend the Greely Hawks Opening Day...Buy 4 season's passes for only $99.00!
Also, the Fat Cats and the Greely Hawks Association are joining forces to offer FREE Season's Passes to all Greely Hawks players!
And there will be 50/50 draws at every game!
So don't just come out for your team's game, it's a lot of fun to watch the other ages and cheer on our Hawks!
May 2, 2011
Hawks are again hosting an Opening Day this Saturday May 7th!
- MINOR: 10:00am -- Metcalfe East diamond -- Embrun @ Greely Hawks
- JUNIOR: 10:30am -- Metcalfe Hardball diamond -- Casselman Voltigeurs @ Greely Hawks
- MAJOR: 1:00pm -- Metcalfe East diamond -- Russell @ Greely Hawks
As always, let's have fun and be good hosts to our respected opponents!
It's almost time to PLAY BALL!!!!!
Toronto Blue Jays Academy coming to town!
The Pinecrest Little League has has been awarded the host site for the Blue Jays Baseball Academy in Eastern Ontario.
President Wayne Hendsbee and our friends at the PLL would be very happy to have our Minor, Major and Junior Hawks join them for the camp!
Learn from the Pros!
Learn from the Pros!
Qualified Toronto Blue Jays instructors will be at Pinecrest Park on Saturday, June 11 at 1:00 PM to run a 4 hour clinic for Little League players ages 8-14. During the clinic each group will rotate stations that will deal with skills such as: hitting, receiving, throwing, fielding, pitching and baserunning.- Clinics cost $40 per participant
- All players will receive a Blue Jays hat and t-shirt
- Participation is open to both boys and girls.
- Participants must be between the ages of 8 and 14 to participate.
- Participants should arrive in appropriate workout attire, running shoes and bring a baseball glove.
- Space is limited.
Click here to register for the Blue Jays clinic, and click on Register Now button for the June 11th clinic.
June 7, 2011
Our young Major Hawks are the Pinecrest Champs!
Our 4 Greely Hawks teams have the best showing ever at the Pinecrest Tournament as we won 6 of our 12 games and came close to winning a few others – all while having a great time together, win or lose!
And after coach Rick Lafrance's Minor Hawks won the "B" Side Championship last season, his core group of boys took it one step further this season in Major as they won the "A" Championship Game over a very strong East Nepean team! What's really impressive is 8 of our 11 Hawks are rookies to Major ball, so the best is yet to come for this young team!
June 14, 2011
Our Hawks show well in "A" tryouts, 11 of them made the Carleton-Russell Aces!
Also, all 12 Senior Hawks are coming back to compete in the "A" Summer season!
Congratulations to the following new Aces:
- MINOR – Ben Halpern, Colby Schroeder, and Ryan Lafrance (and assistant coach Ernie Schroeder)
- MAJOR – William Lachapelle, Alex Hughes, and Michael Armstrong
- JUNIOR – Matt Williams, Tanner Schroeder, Cam Lafrance, Ryan Gill, and Mackenzie Lewis
At the Senior level, there is no "B" league and our Greely Hawks are the only CRLL team, so there were no tryouts needed. But our players had the option to continue playing in the Summer Competitive "A" season, and all 12 Hawks are coming back! It's great to see that these 15-17 year-old players are clearly having a great time together and want to keep playing through the Summer!
Welcome back Tristan Timm, Eric Bekkers, Nick Desbiens, Ryan Gagnon, Mitchell Clarke, Daniel Ferguson, Alex Séguin, Brad Bisson, Kevin Deavy, Emma Wallace, Alek Berthelet and Nicole Domingo. We are also happy to be adding local Greely product Nolan Gillis and Moodie Wahab who played the Spring season with South Ottawa and Russell.
More news to come very soon on the "B" league at Minor, Major and Junior – we have 21 players and a few coaches at those levels who are ready to go for the Competitive "B" season which also interlocks with the City teams! Our hope is that at least a couple of those B teams will be run under our Greely Hawks umbrella. We want ALL our Hawks to have a positive baseball experience wherever they're playing!
In the meantime, let's focus on doing our Greely Hawks proud and finishing this Spring season in style! While some of us are a bit lower in the Standings (updated on this site), we know we can do some damage in the upcoming playoffs if we play like we can!
April 4, 2011
HAWKS jackets for sale
Many of you have seen the HAWKS jackets being worn by our coaches and quite a few players from last year -- and many of you have expressed interest in getting some yourselves -- whether it be for the players, other coaches or even parents (one Grandpa even asked how he can get one!).
The jackets would look just like the photo to the right.....so it has the embroidered Greely Hawks logo on the front plus the word COACH or the player's NAME on the front opposite side of the logo, and the words HAWKS in twill and BASEBALL embroidered on the back....cost is $95 (or $85 if we order 12 or more) and it would be $5 less per jacket for any YOUTH sizes, and all these costs include all taxes.
Jackets of this quality and with this amount/quality of 'decoration' would normally cost $150+, but we're getting a great deal through our new supplier -- Steve Gamble at Russell Pro Hockey Shop.
It takes 2-3 weeks from when the order is placed --- so if we place our order soon, then there's a chance you could have your jackets before the first pitch of the 2011 season!
August 18, 2010
Our Hawks put up a great fight, but powerhouse #1 seed Voltigeurs take the Championship
Facing a Casselman pitcher who some believe to be top-5 in all of Ontario, our Hawks still managed to make it a great game!
Everybody thought this was going to be a fantastic A-Final Championship Game, and sure enough, it was a classic battle between two excellent teams for the right to call themselves CRLL-PRLL Minor A-Champions!
The very first at-bat of this game was a battle on its own as Greely's Michael Armstrong faught off many superb pitches from the #1 pitcher on our District Champion Aces – Casselman's Ryan Wells. Finally, after fouling off 4 would-be strikes, the 10th pitch to Michael was called a strike low and outside. But that at-bat was a sign of things to come as our feisty Hawks were determined to battle this ace pitcher with every at-bat! With 2 outs in the 1st inning, Payton Melvin hit a nice double well over the left-fielder's head, but Payton would remain stranded on base. Greely's starting pitcher, Owen Charbonneau (who earned the right to be the starter with awesome pitching lately), had a rough beginning to this game by his standards as the first 3 Casselman batters reached base and eventually scored. But Owen found his groove and ended up striking out the side to make the score 3-0 for the Voltigeurs after 1 inning of play.
Casselman's phenom pitcher also found his moxy as he struck out the first 2 Hawks in the 2nd inning. But fellow All-Star Tyler Preston smacked a beautiful 2-out double for Greely and he would later be brought home on a clutch single by veteran Hawk Devon Poirier. Owen, who was later named Greely's Game MVP,continued his mastery from the mound as he again struck out the side making the Casselman squad worry as the score was only 3-1 after 2 innings and Greely clearly had some momentum.
In the 3rd inning, that momentum soared as rookie Ben Halpern lead off by earning a clever walk...then he, Ryan Lafrance (single) and Aaron Staffen (RBI single) would all come home to score on an RBI double by Owen and another clutch RBI hit by young rookie Colby Schroeder. The scrappy Hawks now had a 4-3 lead halfway through this epic Championship battle! But, unfortunately for Greely, this Casselman squad is battle-tested and they all came out firing in their half of the 3rd inning as all 10 batters who came up reached base on hits, or walks, or Greely errors. Luckily, our Hawks were able to do a little damage control as they got all 3 outs in the inning by gunning down runners on the base paths – highlighted by a perfect toss from 2nd-baseman Colby to catcher Michael for a huge out on a bang-bang play at home-plate! But the score was now 7-4 for Casselman after 3 innings.
To start the 4th inning, Casselman's star pitcher had already reached his pitch count limit of 75, so their next All-Star pitcher Jeremie Goyer got the call to the hill. And he came out guns-a-blazing as he struck out Greely's first batter, then after a nice single by Devon, the next 2 Hawks were also struck out....so no runs for Greely. But our Hawks' hopes were still alive as Tyler came in to pitch and after walking the first Voltigeur, he sandwiched a strike-out of their lead-off hitter with two ground-ball outs keeping the score 7-4 after 4 innings.
But Jeremie continued to excel in the 5th as he struck out the first Hawk, and then after a nice double by Michael, the next 2 Hawks were put out...although Ryan Lafrance was very unlucky as he scorched an opposite-field line-drive, but it was caught by the Casselman 3rd-baseman. Voltigeurs' star Ryan Wells (later named Casselman's Game MVP) lead off the 5th for Casselman with a bunt single (his 3rd hit of the game) and he would later come home to score his 3rd run of the contest. But after a nice pick-up for an out at 1st-base by Ryan Lafrance, Tyler got the last 2 Casselman outs via strike-outs!
So, with the score 8-4 going into Greely's last inning, our boys needed to try to find a way to crack Casselman's pitcher – but all that our Hawks could manage was a walk by Owen as Jeremie struck out half of the 12 batters he faced over his 3 innings of work – 4-Hawks-up-3-down in each of those 3 innings. Our Hawks tried really hard and had some great at-bats, but, in the end, Casselman's two All-Star pitchers were just too dominant.
A great round of applause was given by all the Greely (and Casselman) fans for our gritty Greely Hawks who played their hearts out in this classic game. So congratulations to our A-Runners-up for their efforts both in this great game and for a great season – Michael, Ryan, Payton, Aaron, Owen, Colby, Cooper, William, Tyler, Devon, Braedan, Cole and Ben! We're all VERY proud of you boys -- you clearly learned a lot under the fantastic guidance of Head Coach Rick Lafrance!
Thanks to our volunteers and umpires!
Also, Greely Hawks President Kim Richer (and Craig) would like to sincerely thank our volunteers for helping us run this Minor Playoff Tournament. First and foremost, special thanks to Karen Crotty-Charbonneau who not only took the lead as our Tournament Coordinator, but she went above and beyond those duties by doing anything and everything she could to help make this a positive experience for all the players! Thank you VERY much Karen for your countless hours, sweat and tears – YOU made the positives possible for our Greely boys! Also a special thanks to Christine Halpern who also did many tasks – not the least of which was doing a terrific job with 50/50 sales which netted extra profits for our organization which goes directly back to our Greely Hawks kids!
We didn't have as much extra volunteer help this season as we have in the past, so our key families who did help out were needed more than ever. We wanted to thank, in no particular order, these Greely volunteers: Ernie Schroeder, Holmes family, Rick Lafrance, Colin Timm, Lori Clarke, Wallace family, Cheryl Deavy, Chuck Robineau, Ginger Robinson, Paul Charbonneau, Louis Armstrong, Greg Crossett, Donnie Melvin, and Kellie Staffen. Also a big thank you to all the Greely families who donated food and drinks to help stock our canteen which was a big success all week long!
We also appreciated the help from members of our Junior Hawks – Alex Séguin, Tristan Timm, Mitchell Clarke, Tanner Schroeder, and Ryan Holmes....as well as Cam Lafrance and Eric Bekkers (who were both there helping every day). And last but certainly not least, we couldn't host these games without our umpires – thanks to Paul Elford, Jean Gagnon, Alex Morin, Eric Bekkers, Mitchell Clarke, Tristan Timm, David Smith, and Dennis Leung.
All of your efforts were very much appreciated in some very challenging times!
June 28, 2011
Underdog Senior Hawks pull off BIG upset over powerhouse South Ottawa Blue Jays!
We now move on to the Championship Game vs Glebe/Gloucester!
This was a classic baseball game with a dramatic ending! With each team having arguably the best pitchers in the league as their starters (Nick Desbiens for us), it was predicatably a low-scoring affair as it was only 1-1 into the 3rd inning. Then, on a couple of errors by our Hawks, the Blue Jays scored 3 runs to make the score 4-1 to start the 4th inning.
With Eric Bekkers now on the mound for us and their ace still pitching for them, neither team scored a run in the 4th and 5th innings. But then in the top of the 6th inning, with time running out, our Hawks pulled through with some clutch hits and scored 3 big runs to tie the game – highlighted by Mitchell Clarke's clutch bases-clearing triple! The Jays threatened to win the game in the bottom half of the inning but Eric and catcher Mitchell combined to make a game-saving out on a player trying to steal home! That out sent us to extra innings as we were now passed curfew with the game still tied.
In the top of the 7th inning, Greely's Brad Bisson lead off with his 2nd hit of the game, and after being moved over to 2nd base with Emma Wallace battling at the plate, their pitcher missed in his attempt to pick off Brad at 2nd base, and Brad was able to come home to score the go-ahead run! We didn't manage to score again, so we were up 5-4 with a chance to close out the game.
Eric was pitching great and we did get 1 out with him on the mound, but with the potential of us playing in the Final on Thursday and possibly needing Eric to start that game, we decided to replace him with "Strike-Machine" Alex Séguin. After walking his 1st batter on a close 3-and-2 pitch, Alex struck out the next batter looking on a beautiful low-inside pitch. Then, with runners on 2nd and 3rd base and 2 out, Alex was facing their #3 batter who's a strong hitter and also successfully bunted twice already in this game. So with our infield in, their batter hit a squibbler between 1st and 2nd base that now second-baseman Eric called and charged perfectly, then he underhanded a quick toss to Daniel Ferguson at 1st base for the game-saving out as the tying run would have already scored and their potential winning run was rounding 3rd base!
It was sheer pandemonium for our Greely Hawks players, coaches and fans as we knew our 3rd place (6W-6L) team just pulled off a HUGE upset over a team that went 8W-1L this season (one loss was to us mind you!) and they remarkably only allowed an average of just over 3 runs per game this season, compared to us allowing close to 8 runs a game! They have fantastic pitchers, and we won this game despite them having their 2 best pitchers on the mound! In fact, we outhit them 10 to 1 in this game – it was only our too many walks and couple of errors that made the game as close as it was. But even with those walks and few errors, to allow them only 4 runs over 7 innings – including shutting them out over the last 4 innings – was a fantastic job by our players!
And the best thing about this big win is literally all 10 of our Hawks there contributed in one way or another to the victory!
- Tristan Timm made 2 amazing running catches in center-field, and had 2 hits
- Eric Bekkers didn't allow a run in 3+ innings pitched, also had 2 hits, and made that huge game-ending play
- Nick Desbiens kept us in the game with gutsy starting pitching for 3+ innings
- Mitchell Clarke had that clutch game-tying bases-clearing triple and flawless work behind the plate
- Daniel Ferguson played perfectly at 1st base, made that tricky catch on the game-ending play, and had a nice hit
- Alex Séguin got the clutch 'save' in a high-pressure situation pitching with the tying and winning runs on base
- Brad Bisson had 2 big hits for the 2nd playoff game in a row and he scored the winning run
- Emma Wallace didn't hit safely but she had good long at-bats that moved the runners along including Brad for the winning run
- Alek Berthelet had a key base hit and scored a run in that 3-run inning
- Nicole Domingo made a spectacular running catch in LF that sparked our comeback, and also had a key hit and scored a run
It should be noted too that 7 of those 10 players are rookies to Senior ball this season, so every Hawk there was and should be proud of how they contributed to this BIG upset win! The opposing coach said after the game that we have a very solid team from top to bottom and we deserved the win!
In the other semi-final game, the 1st place South Ottawa Yankees were defeated 6-3 by Glebe/Gloucester -- so they will now face us on Thursday night for the league Championship!
Well played Hawks, each and every one of you!
August 13, 2010
Minor Hawks get HUGE win over Embrun in A-Semi-Final!
Key hits, great pitching and team defence all factor in to Greely advancing to Championship Game!
In the 3rd inning, rookie Colby and Cooper scored again to give our Hawks a 7-0 lead. Embrun would score 2 runs in the bottom of the 3rd inning to at least give them a chance to tie the game in the 4th inning if they could get the maximum 5 runs – but, first, they couldn't allow Greely even 1 more run in their top of the 4th inning. Well, with Ryan Lafrance, Payton Melvin and Owen all on base, our youngest Hawk Colby came up and smacked a hit well over the Embrun 2nd-baseman which plated Ryan for the game-clinching run!
Make the final 8-2 – VERY impressive as this #2 seeded Embrun team did finish the season with an identical 13W-3L record as our Hawks, but Embrun amassed 209 runs for this season and only allowed 56 runs compared to Greely's 185 runs for and 101 runs against. Plus Embrun were the A-Champs of the Pinecrest tournament back in June when we ended up as B-Champs. So, for our Greely Hawks to come into this pressure-packed A-Semi-Final and pull off this solid victory was a great accomplishment!
Now the #3 seed Hawks have earned the right to face the powerful #1 seed Casselman Voltigeurs who have only lost 1 game (to our Hawks mind you) all season long. It's sure to be a fantastic A-Championship game in Greely!
Greely Hawks really are a skilled group!
It should also be mentioned that, as we always do when we host playoffs in Greely, we had a very exciting Skills Competition on Saturday. Photos will soon be posted of this great event, but we had to mention that our own Greely Hawks were the overall winners of the combined 4 events!
First it was the Throwing Relay Race in which Colby Schroeder, Tyler Preston, Aaron Staffen and Cole Crossett beat out the other 5 participating teams for the team victory! Then in the Running Relay Race around the bases, Braedan Charbonneau, Ryan Lafrance, Cooper Robinson and Payton Melvin finished in 3rd place! In the Hitting Contest, Michael Armstrong finished in 3rd place overall after hitting 6 of 8 pitches with some great swings! And, finally, in the Pitching Contest, Owen Charbonneau and Aaron Staffen tied for 1st place overall with their clutch pitching!
August 12, 2010
Host Minor Hawks get big victory in 1st playoff game
Greely pitchers Owen Charbonneau, Cole Crossett and Tyler Preston strike out 11 of 18 St-Isodore batters en route to a solid 15-2 win.
The #3 seed Hawks also had 2 hits each from veteran Payton Melvin and rookie Colby Schroeder. While Michael Armstrong, Cooper Robinson, Payton, Tyler and Cole each scored 2 runs in the victory over the #6 seed St-Isodore Cardinals.
There are 8 teams participating in these Minor playoffs hosted by our Greely Hawks at Andy Shields Park. This win moves our Hawks to the A-Side where they next play on Friday evening against the winner of #2 Embrun vs #7 Bourget.
For further details, please see the "MINOR PLAYOFFS" section in the left side-bar menu.
GO HAWKS GO!!!
August 9, 2010
Junior Hawks lose a nail-biter in Final
In last inning, #1 seed Russell Red Nexx had 2 outs and 2 strikes for 6 batters in a row – but the 3rd strike was never called and the winning run was walked in
It was a heart-breaker to say the least.
After being down 5-1 after the 1st inning, our Jr Hawks scored 2 runs in the 2nd inning thanks to rookie Tanner Schroeder getting a single and later scoring on a Nick Desbiens' double and Eric Bekkers scoring his 2nd run of the game. In the Russell half of the 2nd inning, Greely's pitcher Cam Lafrance induced 3 straight ground-ball outs, making it 5-3 Russell after 2 innings of play.
In our 3rd inning, Ryan Gill lead off with a single and was later brought home on a sharp single by Eric and he would later score his 3rd run of the game on a wild pitch. Then Tristan Timm walked and after a couple more stolen bases, he was driven home by on a single by Cam. Russell would get 2 straight hits in their 3rd inning, but their lead-off hitter was gunned down trying to steal 3rd base by catcher Eric. And after a nice strike-out by Cam, another ground-ball was played perfectly again by Ryan Holmes at 2nd base for the 3rd out – making the score 6-5 Greely after 3.
In the Hawks' 4th inning, Dave Smith earned another walk and Mitchell Clarke singled....then after a strike-out, Holmesy, Tanner, Eric and Tristan all got on base with a walk, fielder's choice, a single and a walk....and Dave, Mitchell and Tanner would all eventually score giving us 9 runs. For Russell in the 4th, a lead-off walk would eventually come home to score, but after another strike-out by Cam, he had reached his pitch count limit, so Tristan came to the mound in relief. He quickly struck out 2 of the next 3 batters to end the inning with the score 9-6 for our Hawks. Unfortunately for Greely, the last strike-out to end the inning came just 2-3 minutes before the curfew for a new inning to start, so we had to play a 5th and final inning.
For Greely in the 5th, Dave and Gilly both got on base again and eventually scored on a wild pitch and a nice RBI double by Tanner. So, down by 5 runs, Russell needed to get players on base to try to mount the comeback. Their first 3 batters reached on a walk, a double (Nate Bols' 3rd double of the game), and a hit-by-pitch. But after our coach visited with Tristan on the mound, he had confidence that his hurler could go back to throwing the strikes we needed as our coaching staff and catcher all felt Tristan was pitching as well as he ever has. Sure enough, Tristan struck out the next 2 batters in a row – both on called 3rd strikes by the umpire. And then with 2 outs and Greely still up by 2 runs in this last inning, Tristan would get 2 strikes against SIX batters in a row, but, for some reason, the umpire simply wouldn't give the called 3rd strike he had been giving all game long. Then with the fourth 3-and-2 full count on a Russell batter in a row, Tristan's pitch down the middle at the letters was called a ball, and the winning run would walk home for the Championship.
This was a really really tough way to lose a game and a Championship, but our boys can hold their heads high knowing they played a great game as our Hawks played great defence, had more hits than Russell and our pitchers Cam and Tristan did what was asked of them by pitching all around the plate – most of those pitches were strikes until, oddly, we had 2 outs and 2 strikes in the final inning. It's a shame because all 9 Hawks at this game – Eric, Tristan, Cam, Nick, Dave, Mitchell, Gilly, Holmesy and Tanner – gave it their all and deserved a better fate.
Great season boys – it'll only make us stronger next year!
August 6, 2010
Jr Hawks are in 1-game showdown for the A-Pool Championship tonight!
After coming back from a 10-run deficit to win 1st playoff game on Monday, our Jr Hawks split the first 2 games of the A-Pool Best-of-3 Finals against #1 seed Russell Red Nexx
On Monday night in the 1st playoff game, our Jr Hawks started off horribly against the feisty #3 seed Russell II team, and we were down 12-2 going into what would be the final inning. But our boys went to the plate in that last inning with a mission to get on base any way they could, and fortunately for us, the Russell pitchers had trouble throwing strikes. Our Hawks capitalized as 11 batters in row made it on base thanks to a few walks and some timely hits. And with 2 outs and the winning run on 3rd base, the Russell pitcher threw a wild pitch and Cam Lafrance bolted home and made a great slide (which is saying a lot for Cam!) to score the winning run!
After being rained out Tuesday and Wednesday night, our Jr Hawks finally got to face the #1 seed Russell Red Nexx on Thursday night in a double-header – the first 2 games of a Best-of-3 Finals. This series promised to be good baseball as 5 Red Nexx and 6 Hawks were on the Junior All-Star Aces team coached, not coincidentally, by the two Head Coaches in this Championship series.
In Game 1, All-Star Nick Desbiens got the call to be the starting pitcher for Greely, and he pitched the game of his life! Against a very good hitting team that averaged over 12 runs a game this season, Nick went 3-up-down in the 1st and 3rd innings....4-up-3-down in the 2nd and 4th innings....and 5-up-3-down in the final 5th inning for the complete game 1-hit shut-out win! So Nick only faced 4 batters over the minimum and he also had 6 strike-outs – most of which came via his incredible curve-ball that had the very good Russell hitters confused all game long! While Nick's pitching was definitely the story of the game for Greely, his opposing starting pitcher, Jeff Hough was also fantastic in this game. He stuck out 12 Hawks in his 4+ innings and, while none of our Hawks had great hitting stats, we came up with key hits at key times. In the 1st inning, All-Star Tristan Timm scorched a double way over the center-fielder's head and Tristan eventually scored. With 2 out in the 3rd inning, All-Star Ryan Gill hit a double of his own over 1st base and he too eventually scored. And Nick lead off the 4th inning with a solid single and he was hit home on a nice double by Alex Séguin who later also came home to score. In the final 5th inning with our visiting Hawks up 5-0, the Red Nexx had 2 men on base and an All-Star hitter at the plate with 2 out, but Nick slammed the door shut with 3 straight strikes on 3 different devastating pitches!
In Game 2, fellow All-Star Eric Bekkers got the nod as our Hawks starting pitcher, and after a lead-off walk to Russell's Tyler Jodoin who eventually scored on a deep double by Nate Bols, Eric ended up strucking out the side with clever pitches. In our 2nd inning, Dave Smith had a nice long battle against #1 All-Star pitcher Nate, and Smitty ultimately worked out a walk. He would later come home to score on a terrific suicide-squeeze bunt by Ryan Gill. Another lead-off walk for Russell came home to score in their 2nd inning, but our Hawks played great defence behind Eric to limit the damage to just 1 run making the score 2-2 after 2. In the 3rd inning, after 2 ground-ball outs, Russell's 2 top-of-the-order hitters, Tyler and Jesse Lavictoire, managed to get walks and they were brought home on a clutch double. Then another double by Nate scored that runner and he later scored to make the score 6-2 for Russell after 3 innings of play. In our 4th and last inning, Smitty and Gilly both scored to make it 6-4, but with Eric (hard single) and Tristan (walk) on 2nd and 3rd base, we couldn't get the clutch hit to tie the game. But a valiant effort by our Hawks against a very strong team and definitely one of the very best pitchers in our league who struck out 9 batters and only allowed 2 hits.
The winner-takes-all showdown between these top 2 teams goes tonight at 6:30pm in Embrun at Patenaude park. With the two best starting pitchers for each team unavailable to pitch tonight, it might come down to which other pitchers can step up and deliver....or it might be the bats that do the damage in this final A-pool Championship Game!
Come on out and cheer on our Jr Hawks!
July 30, 2010
Our CRLL Aces are on top again!
Carleton-Russell boys are the Minor All-Star District 6 Champs for the 2nd year in a row!
So, just like last year, our young boys (and their parents) are off to the Minor Provincials – only this year, instead of just going to the Toronto area, our budding superstars are going way up North to Timmins Ontario! What a great experience for everyone!
Their 1st of 5 round-robin games is on Wed. Aug. 4th at 2:30pm — you can follow our Minor Aces progress here:
UPDATE FROM TIMMINS:
- Wednesday — CRLL Aces 10 Pinecrest Patriots 8
- Thursday — CRLL Aces 11 Brockville Braves 1
- Friday — CRLL Aces 12 Timmins Lynx 3
- Saturday — Lasalle Turtle Club 10 CRLL Aces 9
- Sunday — Toronto High Park Braves 7 CRLL Aces 5
- Semi-Final — Toronto High Park Braves 6 CRLL Aces 4
Fantastic job by our Aces who proved to be one of the top 3 teams in the whole Province of Ontario!
July 29, 2010
Our CRLL Minor Aces are in the All-Star Finals – again!
After winning our District 6 for the 1st time in recent memory last year, our CRLL Minor Aces are in a 1-game showdown tonight for the District Championship!
Well, Orleans did come out strong last night and beat our Aces 17-7 which sets up a winner-takes-all game tonight at 6:00pm at Lansdowne Park – the Champs will move on to Timmins next week for the Provincials!
See all the details here: http://www.districtsix.ca/index.php?iid=5&pi=104&di=101&pg=3
Come out and cheer on our Minor Aces tonight – it's sure to be some great baseball!!
July 6, 2010
Many of our Greely Hawks are All-Stars!
In fact, at the Junior level, the last tryout was Sunday night, and officially, no less than SIX of our Greely Hawks have made the 12-player team! So half of the All-Star Aces will be from our Hawks, along with Greely Head Coach Craig Richer who will act as an Assistant Coach for the Junior Aces again this year.
Our Junior All-Star Aces are:
- Mitchell Clarke
- Tristan Timm
- Nick Desbiens
- Cam Lafrance
- Ryan Gill
- Eric Bekkers
Our Major All-Star Ace is:
- Stephen Scharfe
Our Minor All-Star Aces are:
- Ryan Lafrance
- Owen Charbonneau
- Tyler Preston
Congrats to all Hawks who tried out — and for all those who made the team, we hope you have a great experience!
Playdown Tournament dates and locations:
- MINOR — July 24-29 hosted by Glebe @ Landsdowne Park (travel date to Timmins if we make Provincials is Aug. 3rd)
- MAJOR — July 16-21 hosted by Embrun (travel date to Thunder Bay if we make Provincials is July 25th)
- JUNIOR — July 18-22 hosted by South Ottawa @ Ron Milks diamond behind Franco-Cité high school (date of Provincials in East Nepean is July 27th)
July 3, 2010
Our Senior Hawks welcome 3 Russell players to join our squad for the Summer season
With the new interlock situation this year at the Senior level, our Greely Hawks are already finished their Spring season when they finished in 6th place out of 7 teams with a 2W-9L record.
But the great news is only 1 Greely Hawk is not coming back for Summer ball, and our team is very happy to be adding 3 very experienced and talented players from Russell --- Tyler Petch, Greg Bridges and Derek Picketts will now be sporting our black and gold uniforms. Their abilities, especially from the pitching mound, will be very welcomed by our Senior team!
Also joining us at the coaching ranks is Derek Petch who's been a coach in our league for a long time, so he too will be a valuable addition to our squad. Head Coach Dennis Leung and Assistant David Kemp will surely be happy to get Derek's expertise in the dugout.
The Summer season starts this week and runs all the way to the first weekend in September. For our boys, it all starts Sunday July 4th with our first practice --- then 2 games this week --- starting at home on Tuesday against the Kanata Cubs, followed by a game in Gloucester on Thursday against the A's.
Good luck Senior Hawks -- hope you have a fun Summer season!
July 8, 2010
FREE Fat Cats Little League Baseball Clinic
Also get a Fat Cats Game Ticket!
Saturday, July 10th, 10 am – Noon at Ottawa Stadium, 300 CoventryRoad
Also get a Fat Cats Game Ticket!
Saturday, July 10th, 10 am – Noon at Ottawa Stadium, 300 CoventryRoad
Hosted by the Ottawa Fat Cats Coaches & Players. This baseball clinic will focus on tips and drills for proper throwing, hitting and fielding for all positional players. There will also be pitching instruction for proper mechanics.
This clinic is free to all Little League players and limited to 120 participants. Pre-registration and completion of a participation waiver will be required at the stadium. Players are asked to wear their team jersey and bring their own glove.
After the clinic, the BBQ area will be opened for business to serve all players and parents. Players will receive a free Fat Cats ticket to the doubleheader that begins at 2:00 pm vs. the London Majors.
March 24, 2010
Hawks players and coaches will be learning from a Pro next season!
Local baseball professional will be teaching our coaches and our players
We at Greely Hawks Baseball are very happy to announce that local former professional baseball player, Mike Kusiewicz, has kindly agreed to come out again next year to teach our Hawks some great tips about baseball. Last year, Mike came out specifically to do a Coaching Clinic for us, but next time, we're taking it one step further --- Mike will do a Baseball Clinic for our players and our coaches together!
Mike played pro baseball for several years, most recently with our hometown professional team as a starting pitcher and coach. But it's Mike's baseball background that's really impressive!
These are just some of the items from the bio of Mike Kusiewicz (pronounced Koo-se-vitch):
These are just some of the items from the bio of Mike Kusiewicz (pronounced Koo-se-vitch):
- Pitcher for Team Canada at the 2007 World Cup of Baseball in Taiwan
- 2006 Ottawa Baseball Player of the Year
- Drafted 8th round – Colorado Rockies 1994
- Colorado Rockies Minor League player of the Year 1998
- Played with Team Ontario 1994
- 6 time member of Team Canada
- Played with 6 different major league organizations over 11 year professional career
- Member of Canadian Olympic baseball team in Athens
And Mike also runs year-round baseball camps teaching kids and coaches all over Ottawa the right ways to play this classic game. Some of our Greely Hawks players are currently attending Mike's Spring sessions every Saturday!
http://mikesbaseballcamps.com/index.htm
We'll all learn more about all the basics --- pitching, hitting, fielding, throwing and coaching from a professional who's been through it all -- we are very fortunate to have someone of Mike's credentials coming out again to share his knowledge and experience with us!
June 7, 2010
All 4 Hawks teams have fun in Pinecrest, and our Minor Hawks end up 'B' Champs!
But this year was a bit of a different story!
As you'll see on the Pinecrest website — under the terrific guidance of Head Coach Rick Lafrance, our Minor Greely Hawks are the 'B' Champions of the 11 teams entered in the tournament! In their 1st game against the Pinecrest Athletics, our Hawks had what most observers said was their worst game of the season, but they still almost came back....eventually losing 9-6 placing Greely on the B-side. Then our boys faced another Pinecrest team in the B semi-final, and our pitching was superb in a 10-0 shut-out win moving Greely to the Finals! In this roller-coaster game, our Hawks had an early 8-0 lead, but then a few things went against our team and the (yet another) Pinecrest team was within 1 run in the late innings. But Coach Rick rallied his troops and they responded as they went on to a convincing 14-7 win to become the Champions! Congratulations to our recipients of the '"B CHAMPS" medals — (left to right in above photo) William Keon, Devon Poirier, Cooper Robinson, Colby Schroeder, Michael Armstrong, Ryan Lafrance, Cole Crossett, Owen Charbonneau, Tyler Preston, Ben Halpern, and Braeden Charbonneau. Also playing on the weekend but not in photo were Payton Melvin and Aaron Staffen. (this Minor story is also posted on the CRLL main site: http://www.crll.ca/index.php?iid=2&pg=1&ni=22)
Our Major Greely Hawks also played some good games — but bad 1st innings were too much to overcome in the end. Our Major team was without their Head Coach this weekend, but they were still in the very capable hands of Assistant Coaches Hugues Lachapelle and Rob Scharfe whose positive attitudes went a long way in getting their boys to give every effort right to the last out. After a 9-3 loss in their 1st game (to the eventual champs Pinecrest Jays), our Hawks gave up 10 runs in the first 2 innings of game #2 against another Pinecrest team, and with time running out, our Hawks were down 13-6 — but our boys didn't give up as they clawed their way back to make it 13-11 going into the last inning. Unfortunately, Greely couldn't score again against an outstanding little Pinecrest pitcher, but our Major Hawks played great overall and seemed to have a a lot of fun as a team!
Our Junior Greely Hawks had a very good tournament against some steep competition! In our 1st game against an "Canadian-A" level Pinecrest team, our Hawks came up just 1 run short in a 5-4 loss. But in our 2nd game against a good team from East Nepean, our boys were down 7-4 going into our last at-bat against a very good pitcher. Our Hawks battled hard in every at-bat and eventually our youngest Junior Hawk, rookie Tanner Schroeder, hit a solid game-winning single that scored our last 2 runs and sent us to the Semi-Finals with a dramatic 8-7 win! We were then pitted against the defending champion #1 seeded Carlingwood/Frank Ryan Cardinals who soared through their first 2 games with ease. And with the awful rainy weather, we had a terrible start to our game allowing 12 runs in the 1st inning — but, against some excellent pitchers and the same strong hitters, our Hawks actually matched the Cardinals 1 run over the last 2 innings — that was very impressive (as CFR eventually easily won the tournament)! Unfortunately, we had to concede our B-Final game later that afternoon because of injuries coupled with the miserable weather and bad field conditions. But Head Coach Craig Richer is very proud of his boys — especially for only having that 1 bad inning in the 3 games against some top quality opponents! In the other 10 innings played, we scored exactly as many runs (12) as we allowed — so we were neck and neck against these strong city teams — not bad considering half our team are rookies to Junior ball!
For our Senior Greely Hawks, the story wasn't as positive as the schedule unfortunately had them facing a couple of powerhouse teams — one was clearly a travelling 'all-star' team from Québec (who, not surprisingly won this tournament), and the other was the host Pinecrest team who are undefeated and dominating their league this season. But despite the 2 blow-out losses, our Hawks showed some good things in their games and Head Coach Dennis Leung said his boys had a great time as his team really has a good time whenever they're together!
Overall, we won 3 of our 10 games, and almost won 3 other close ones, but much more importantly, the kids seemed to have a great time — which is what it's really all about. Thanks to all our players and all our coaches (and parents) for representing our Greely Hawks organization so well. We are getting better on the field each year and, whether we win or lose, the opposing teams are always very impressed with our Greely Hawks!
Congrats again to our Minor Hawks — great job boys!!!
May 30, 2010
All 4 of our Greely Hawks teams ready to play ball in a fun tournament this weekend!
The tournament is this weekend (June 5-6) and open to registered house league teams only. All teams are guaranteed two games.
Pinecrest Little League's Spring Family Picnic day is an integral part of the weekend. It features a dunk tank, Little Ray's Reptiles, Giant Slide & Moon Bounce and more. All players receive complimentary hot dog and pop.
Win or lose, our 4 Greely Hawks teams will surely have a blast playing ball this weekend and cheering eachother on in our games!
The tournament is this weekend (June 5-6) and open to registered house league teams only. All teams are guaranteed two games.
Pinecrest Little League's Spring Family Picnic day is an integral part of the weekend. It features a dunk tank, Little Ray's Reptiles, Giant Slide & Moon Bounce and more. All players receive complimentary hot dog and pop.
Win or lose, our 4 Greely Hawks teams will surely have a blast playing ball this weekend and cheering eachother on in our games!
February 19, 2010
Registration for the 2010 season is set for first week of March!
It's that time of year again -- the first sign that Spring is on its way as baseball registration time is upon us!
On Wednesday March 3rd from 7:00 to 9:00pm and Saturday March 6th from 9:00am to noon we will be taking registrations for our Greely Hawks teams at the Greely Community Centre on Meadow Drive.
Just a quick recap of the 2009 season for our 5 Greely Hawks teams:
- Greely Minor Golden Hawks --- under the guidance of coaches Rick Lafrance, Hugues Lachapelle and Marc Seaman, our Minor Golden Hawks started off the season with 5 straight wins and finished with a 9W-8L season and they showed terrific potential and progress throughout the season and playoffs....and quite a few young Golden Hawks will surely continue to improve at the Minor age level.
- Greely Minor Black Hawks --- under the guidance of coaches Greg Crossett, Louis Armstrong, Dale Poirier and Paul Charbonneau, our Minor Black Hawks got off to a disappointing start in their wins and losses, but they won more games than they lost down the stretch and they too have a bunch of young players who improved as the season moved along and will be even better next season.
- Greely Major Hawks --- under the guidance of coaches Jeff Gill, Paul Charette, Kent Holmes and Mike Armstrong, our Major Hawks had a very rough start to the season losing their first 7 games, but they showed good promise the rest of the way including beating the #1 team Embrun Rays 10-3! But it was in the playoffs that we hosted where our Major Hawks made us most proud as they upset the heavily favoured Russell Royals team in the semi-final, and then they came within a bounce or two of upsetting Embrun in the league Championship Game!
- Greely Junior Hawks --- under the guidance of coaches Craig Richer, Vince Séguin, Bob Kemp and Colin Timm, our Junior Hawks are the defending league Champions! After a respectable 11W-7L season, our Junior Hawks soared in the playoffs culminated by beating the powerhouse Clarence team twice to take the league Championship for the first time in our Greely Hawks short history! And they should do well again this season as 8 of the players would be at the Junior age level again! The core of players from this inaugural Greely Hawks team will be going into their 4th season together.
- Greely Senior Hawks --- under the guidance of Head Coach Dennis Leung who had to do much of the work by himself, our Senior team struggled to a 5W-10L-2T season.....but they had highlights during the season including beating two of the top-ranked teams, and our Senior Hawks were a young team last year with all but 1 of the 13 players eligible to return at the Senior age level this coming season.
Also, I definitely can not forget to mention that 3 of our Greely Hawks Minor-age players --- Michael Armstrong, William Lachapelle and Alex Hughes not only made the CRLL Aces All-Star team but they were big contributors in that team winning our District-6 Championship for the first time in recent memory! Their team then moved on to the Provincials in Toronto where they even won a game against some steep competition!
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our President Kim Richer at 2kim4sports@gmail.com
We're looking forward to our 4th season being another successful one!
LET'S PLAY BALL!!
August 16, 2009
Junior Hawks are the CRLL/PRLL Champs!
Greely pitcher Eric Bekkers delivers a gem as his team pulls off the stunning victory over the powerhouse Clarence Cougars
We wanted this CRLL-PRLL Junior Championship Final Game on Sunday to go off in style, so we had music playing during the team warm-ups, we had 3 quality umpires on hand to call the game, we officially announced all the players and coaches, we had a pre-game ceremony with the reading of the Little League Pledge and playing our National Anthem, and we announced the players coming to bat along with all the game details after each half inning -- so both teams were pumped! Thanks to Tammy Séguin and Karen Charbonneau for being our announcer and game official -- it was much appreciated, especially by the players!
On to the game action!
1st inning
The #2 seed Greely Hawks, who had an 11W-7L regular season record were the visiting team for this game, so we batted first -- and lead-off man Eric Bekkers worked out a walk and then he quickly stole 2nd and 3rd base while #2 hitter Joey Kidney also drew a walk and he quickly stole 2nd base. Ryan Gagnon then hit a long fly ball to deep right field which brought home Eric with the sacrifice fly. Then Mitchell Clarke grounded out hard to 2nd base, but that brought home Joey which gave us a nice 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the 1st inning. To the sound of one of his favourite songs, Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger", Greely's starting pitcher Eric looked good in his warm-up pitches and that was definitely a sign of things to come! With his natural sinker and precise accuracy, Eric struck out the side which gave his team a huge boost -- we knew our pitcher was going to be on fire!
2nd inning
But the #1 seed Cougars, who have won 18 of their 21 games this season, were here to try to win this game too --- and they answered the call getting the Hawks out 3-up-3-down in the 2nd inning. Then in the bottom of the inning, after Eric struck out the first Cougar, three of the next four batters got on base and all three of them came in to score as Greely's team defence showed a couple of signs of being nervous --- so 3-2 for Clarence after 2 innings of play.
3rd inning
Then the Greely coaches Craig Richer, Vince Séguin, Bob Kemp and Colin Timm rallied their troops together and reminded them that we proved yesterday we can be the better team -- and the Hawks responded in a big way! The first 6 batters -- Alek Berthelet, Josh Kemp, Nic Caravaggio, Eric, Joey and Ryan all got on base via walks or hits, and all 6 eventually came home to score. Then after Daniel Ferguson drove home a run on a ground-out, Alex Séguin walked and Andrew Leung had a great at-bat which resulted in a seeing-eye RBI single....then after another walk earned by Tristan Timm, our lead-off hitter of the inning Alek was up again and he managed a 2-strike single that scored 2 more runs making the score 10-3 for the underdog Greely Hawks! Then like clutch pitchers do after an offensive outburst by their team, Eric smoothly came in and got the Cougars out 3-up-and-3-down including another impressive strike-out!
4th inning
Then in the 4th inning, Nic and Eric got on with a walk and a single, and after a couple more stolen bases, Joey brought home Nic on a ground-out to the right side, and Ryan drove in Eric with a nice 2-strike single giving us 12 runs in the game. In the Clarence half of the inning, Greely's hurler Eric continued his mastery from the mound as he struck out the first batter (one of the league's best hitters!) and then a mere single was sandwiched by two harmless pop-ups to pitcher and 1st base -- making the score 12-3 after 4 innings. It should be noted that this Clarence team was not only the #1 seed with a 16W-2L regular season record, but they also were by far the league's best offensive team with 266 runs scored in 18 games -- so an average of almost 15 runs a game! But Eric was pitching the game of his life, and his teammates supported him with solid defence behind him.
Last inning
In what would be the final inning, Greely's Alex, Andrew, Tristan and Alek all got on with walks which plated 1 run as Clarence's pitching was clearly burned out.....then the "Hitting Machine" rookie Nic had his best hit of the season with a hard line drive double well over 2nd base which scored 2 more runs, and Eric got a walk that brought home our 15th run. So with a huge 15-3 lead in the final inning, Eric went right back out to the mound to nail down the complete game victory. The first Clarence batter got on with a single, but he was caught stealing on a great throw by our stellar catcher Mitchell to Tristan who applied the tag at 3rd base. Then after another single, and a couple of stolen bases, one Cougar scored on a ground-out. Then after another single, and 2 out, Eric was facing Clarence's next best hitter -- their feisty lead-off batter -- and in a long battle with a few foul balls, Eric fired a high-inside 2-seam fastball that was swung on and missed for Eric's 8th strike-out of the game -- and the Greely celebrations were on with the solid 15-4 win over a clearly humbled Clarence Cougars team.
Greely Hawks first time Champions!
So the 2009 version of our Greely Junior Hawks won our franchise's first ever league Championship!! This was Greely's 3rd season in the CRLL-PRLL, and we've had 8 other teams try really hard -- but this Junior team will go down in history as the first league Champs at any age level! And the Junior team for next season will also be a force as only 5 of the 13 Jr. Hawks graduate to Senior ball and some terrific players are coming up from Major for next season! But for this Championship season --- congratulations to (from left to right in the team photo above): Head Coach Craig Richer, Alex Séguin, Joey Kidney, Assistant Coach Colin Timm, Alek Berthelet, Daniel Ferguson, Ryan Gagnon, Andrew Leung, Mitchell Clarke, Nic Caravaggio, Assistant Coach Bob Kemp, Josh Kemp, Eric Bekkers, Tristan Timm, Assistant Coach Vince Séguin, and Emma Wallace who unfortunately needed to be out of town for our final win, but she was clutch in our previous 4 playoff games, and Kevin Deavy who had to miss our playoffs, but he was a key performer during our regular season!
Thanks for a great season Junior Hawks -- enjoy the feeling of being Champions!
August 15, 2009
Winner takes all showdown on Sunday in Metcalfe!
Greely Junior Hawks play their best game of the season when in counts
As mentioned in the story below, our Greely Junior Hawks had the daunting task of trying to beat the powerful Clarence Cougars in their home park in Bourget on Saturday afternoon --- even though our Hawks have held last-inning leads against these guys in their last two meetings, we knew it would be tough to beat them (with their best pitcher on the mound) when they could win the CRLL-PRLL Championship on their home turf ---- and after winning 18 of their 20 games so far this season, they were certainly expecting to win this game and not have to come back to our home park again....
But no so fast!
Our Hawks got off to a good start as lead-off hitter Eric Bekkers was driven home by #2 hitter Joey Kidney.....and our #3 hitter Ryan Gagnon got home on a nice hit by clean-up hitter Mitchell "MC Hammer" Clarke. But Clarence came back in their home half of the inning to score 2 runs, making the score 2-2 after 1 inning of play. In our 2nd inning, Alex Seguin lead off with a nice single, then Andrew Leung and Tristan Timm walked --- and Alex was driven home by Alek Berthelet's ground-out, and with 2 strikes against her, Emma Wallace drove home both Andrew and Tristan with her best hit of the season well over the 1st-baseman! That was a clear momentum change as we were up 5-2 and our pitcher Ryan Gagnon was on fire as he went 3-up-3-down in the 2nd with the last two Cougars striking out! Then in our 3rd inning, we exploded for 7 runs (off their best pitcher mind you!) as we had 4 hits and a few walks come home! And in the bottom of the inning, Clarence only managed 1 run against Ryan as he struck out 2 more Cougars and Emma ended the inning with a nice catch of a hard line-drive at 2nd base that saved at least 2 runs! In our 4th inning, we scored 2 more runs thanks to a nice double by Mitchell off the fence and a nice single by Nic Caravaggio!
So things looked really good for our Hawks as Clarence were down to their last at-bat and down by a score of 14-3 --- but the #1 seed team was not giving up yet ---- their first 4 hitters all got on base with some great hits and they all eventually scored, and after another strike out by Ryan, 2 more Cougars got on base and later came in to count making the score 14-9.....then another nice strike-out for Ryan with high heat making it 2 outs.....but Clarence's next 2 batters got on base --- and things were getting tense as Ryan was approaching his pitch count limit, but he dug deep and with a 2-and-2 count on their batter, Ryan made a great pitch that was swung on and missed sealing the victory for our Hawks!!!!
Now the rematch happens on Sunday at 1:00pm at our home park in Metcalfe --- it's a winner takes all one game showdown for the Championship!!
Come out and support your Hawks as we try to win our franchise's first Championship!!!
August 14, 2009
Junior Greely Hawks in Championship Game!
Hawks come back in last inning to beat the pesky Russell Blue Jays and move on to face Clarence in the Final!
With our 3 regular starting pitchers not available to pitch for this game, we needed a good performance from Josh Kemp -- and we got just that as he pitched 90 pitches and kept our Hawks in the game. Then rookie Tristan Timm came in and he too did a great job from the mound, but, due to a couple of mental errors by our team, we were down by 3 runs going into our last at bat.
Nic "Hitting Machine" Caravaggio lead off the inning for Greely with a walk......then Andrew Leung, Eric Bekkers and Ryan Gagnon also fought off some pitches to earn walks, which scored Nic....then clean-up hitter Mitchell "MC Hammer" Clarke hit a sky-high fly ball to center field that drove in Andrew putting us down by just 1 run with still nobody out.....then Daniel "Hoover" Ferguson wasted a few pitches with 2 strikes against him to finally get a walk on a close pitch which scored Eric to tie the game.....then Alex Seguin swung at a good 2-and-0 pitch that went foul, then with a 3-and-1 count, Alex had a good eye on the next pitch that sailed wide for ball-4 which scored Ryan for the winning run!
Now our feisty Hawks travel to Bourget on Saturday at 1:00pm for another showdown against the powerful 16W-2L Clarence Cougars.....but our Greely team is confident as we've held last-inning leads in each of our last 2 games against this team --- so if we can do the same in this Championship Game, and this time close out the win -- then we would get another rematch on Sunday at our home field in Metcalfe at 1:00pm for the chance to beat Clarence again and claim the Championship for Greely!
August 13, 2009
Playoff Fever for our Greely Hawks!
In Minor, Greely faced Greely again, this time one was eliminated...and in Junior, our Hawks battled the #1 seed Clarence Cougars
Those wins meant that our two Greely Minor teams would face eachother again -- only this time the game was played in our home park in Greely with all the official tournament extras that all playoff games should have for the kids --- some great music was playing during the teams' pre-game warm-ups, then our announcer (thanks Cheryl!!!) officially announced all the players from both teams and had them line up on their respective lines, then a player from each team read the Little League pledge in English and French, followed by the playing of our National Anthem, and then during the whole game, each player was announced just like they do in the Major Leagues --- apparently both teams had a blast! And it was only fitting that the game came down to a nail-biting situation in the final inning, the home Golden Hawks had 2 players on base with 2 outs and they were down by just one run, but the Black Hawks pitcher managed to get the strike out and send his team to the B-Championship game on Saturday at 10:00am in Casselman! Great job for the Black Hawks who started the season with a pretty bad record, but good coaching by Greg Crossett and his assistants has obviously paid off as the boys have improved a lot as the season went along. And, despite the very narrow loss, our Golden Hawks had a terrific season as they were also very well coached by Rick Lafrance and his assistants as they have many players that improved dramatically over the season. And apparently, the Golden Hawks had a season-ending pool party that was unbelievable -- thanks to the Keon-Tomlinson family for going all out for the team!
JUNIOR --- Our 2nd-place Junior Hawks faced the #1 seed Clarence Cougars in Metcalfe on Thursday night and this game was as exciting as it gets! Clarence were the 1st-place team all season long with a very impressive 16W-2L season and have blown out many teams including our Hawks. But in this game, our Greely gang was ready to fight and anchored by strong pitching from starter Mitchell Clarke, then Ryan Gagnon and Eric Bekkers, our team had a slim 4-3 lead going into Clarence's last at-bat. With 2 outs and the tying run on 3rd-base, Eric had 2 strikes on their batter, but he managed a single to right field to score the tying run.....then when with that batter now on 3rd base, Eric again had 2 strikes on the new batter, but he fought off a good pitch and hit a blooper over the pitching mound that our short-stop Ryan got to and made the bullet throw to 1st-base where the batter was safe on a bang-bang play while the winning run came in to score the win for Clarence.
Now our Junior Hawks will face the Russell Blue Jays on Friday night again in Metcalfe @ 7:15pm. The winner of that game moves on to face Clarence on Saturday in Bourget for the Championship! Mind you, our Hawks or Russell will have to beat Clarence on Saturday and then again on Sunday as they have yet to lose a game in this double-knockout tournament! But first, our Hawks must defeat Russell on Friday night ---and we can use all the Greely fans support we can get --- so come on out and cheer us on!!!
August 12, 2009
Two Minor Hawks teams and Junior Hawks battling in playoffs!
MINOR --- On Monday night, our two Greely Hawks teams were unfortunately pitted against eachother in St-Albert --- and in a heated battle, the Black Hawks prevailed with a 13-10 win -- which knocks the Golden Hawks down to the B-side to face likely a Russell team on Wednesday night in Casselman at 6:30pm. Meanwhile the Black Hawks moved on to play the 1st-place Casselman #2 team on Tuesday night. Our Black Hawks put up a good fight against the stacked Casselman team (with their All-Star coach and a few All-Star players), but we lost 15-8. So now our Black Hawks also likely play against a Russell team on Wednesday night in St-Albert at 6:30pm. If both Greely teams win their games, which they are favoured to do, then our Hawks play eachother again on Thursday night for the right to fight for the B-Championship!
JUNIOR --- Our #2 seed Junior Hawks faced the #6 seed Rockland Stars on Tuesday night, and the game was much closer than some would have anticipated! Mind you, in 3 of the previous 4 meetings between these two teams, Greely won by just 1 run. After giving up an early lead to Rockland, Greely Hawks pitchers Eric Bekkers, Mitchell Clarke and Josh Kemp kept us in the game with good damage control pitching -- but we were still down 2 runs going into our final at-bat. Joey "Bubba" Kidney lead off the inning with a hard-faught walk, and he stole 3 bases including home to bring us within 1 run....then Tristan Timm and Emma Wallace also fought off many pitches to earn walks.....Tristan ended up scoring the tying run on a passed ball while Emma made it to 3rd-base on steals.....then with 1 out, one of our raw rookies, Nic "Hitting Machine" Caravaggio hit a hard grounder to the right side, he was called out on a close play at 1st-base, but Emma smartly came home to score the winning run! The final score was 9-8! Our Hawks now move on to play against the #1 seed Clarence Cougars on Thursday @ 7:15pm in Metcalfe!
If you're free, come on out and cheer on our Junior team --- it'll surely be some great baseball and an exciting and competitive game!
August 10, 2009
It's playoff week for our 2 Minor Hawks teams and our Junior Hawks!
This past weekend saw two of our Greely Hawks teams playoffs and seasons come to an end. As posted below, we hosted the successful Major playoffs in Greely -- in which the last place Major Hawks battled their way to the A-Final and barely lost (8-4) to the powerhouse Embrun Rays. And our 5th-place Senior Hawks (5W-10L-2T) went to their playoff tournament on Saturday and Sunday in Cornwall, and (details to come soon)...
Starting tonight in St-Albert, our 4th-place Minor Golden Hawks (9W-8L) play against our 5th-place Black Hawks (7W-11L) in the first game of their playoff double-knockout tournament. The winner of the Greely battle faces the 1st-place Casselman #2 team, while the loser goes to the B-side of the tournament to try to capture the B-Championship! Since our 2 teams face eachother right off the bat, we can't hope for them to meet in the A-Final game, so we can only hope that one Greely team wins the A-side while the other moves on to win the B-side! Good luck boys!
Also starting tonight is the Junior double-knockout tournament, although our 2nd-place Junior Hawks (11W-7L) get a bye for tonight and start their playoff drive Tuesday night at home in Metcalfe @ 7:15pm against the winner of the game between the #3 seed Casselman Voltigeurs and the #6 seed Rockland Stars. Having placed the highest of all our 5 Greely Hawks teams, there's a lot of hope and expectation for our Jr. Hawks, and "insiders" say they do indeed have a good shot of winning the Championship if they play to their capabilities!
August 8, 2009
Playoff tournament in Greely was a Major success!
Thanks to all the volunteers, umpires, players, coaches and parents --- and Mother Nature -- our Major Playoffs in Greely this week were a great success!
Monday and Wednesday night saw great action in all 4 games with the Russell Royals coming out as the #1 seed for the Semi-Finals, Embrun Rays took the #2 seed, followed by Casselman Voltigeurs in 3rd place and our Greely Hawks in 4th place. Meaning Russell would host Greely in one Semi-Final and Embrun would host Casselman -- both games were on Saturday morning in perfect baseball weather!
Our Greely Hawks who finished the regular season with a 4-14 record and who didn't score a run in their two round-robin losses and who lost all 6 of their regular season games against Russell by a combined score of 36 to 124 --- were obviously in VERY tough against this very strong Russell squad who are coached very well by Paul Lavictoire. And sure enough, the Royals took an early 3-0 lead and things looked bad for our home-town team --- but the Hawks stormed back to tie the game at 3 midway through the game.....and then Greely had a monster inning and actually held an 11-4 lead over a stunned Russell team......and our boys would hold off a bit of a comeback by Russell as Greely pulled off the BIG upset and they would move on to face the powerhouse Embrun Rays who just barely beat Casselman by 1 run in their Semi-Final game!
Major Skills on Display
Halfway through the day after a good BBQ lunch (thanks SO much volunteers!!) a very exciting Skills Competition took place with stations for a running relay race (won by Embrun), a throwing relay race (won by Embrun), a pitching tent (won by Russell's Nate Bols) and a hitting station (won by Greely's Cam Lafrance for the 4th consecutive season!). After the overall total team points were calculated -- the Russell Royals were the Skills Champs, with our Greely Hawks finishing 2nd, while Embrun were very close in 3rd place with Casselman not far back in 4th place. Thanks to our Greely coaches (and a couple of the Russell coaches) for helping us run the skills -- and extra thanks to Colin Timm for doing such a great job announcing and running the events!
In the B-Final, Russell's Nate Bols, not only the Skills pitching champ but likely the best pitcher in Major, was just too strong for the Casselman team as Nate had many strikeouts en route to a solid 6-1 win giving Russell the B Championship!
Between games, we held a raffle draw for a pair of 100-level Ottawa Senators tickets for this upcoming season --- and of the 100s of tickets in the bucket, the winner was one of our Greely Hawks Dads -- Rob Scharfe -- who was also a terrific announcer for 2 of the games.
In the A-Final, Greely got down 4-0 early to the heavily favoured Embrun Rays who finished the regular season in 1st place with a 14-3-1 record including a 5-1 record against our Hawks. But our feisty Greely team, who are also well coached by Jeff Gill, faught back to make a game of it as the crowds on both sides were enjoying the fierce baseball action along with the fun music between innings! But Murray Elves' Embrun team was just too strong as they held the fort and beat our Hawks 8-4 for the A Championship!
Congrats to all 4 teams for a great tournament with many exciting games and great attitudes were displayed by all the players -- and special credit to our Greely Major Hawks who fought hard after finishing in last place this season to make it all the way to the A-Finals and if a few bounces went their way, they just might have won the whole thing! Great job by all these Hawks in the playoffs -- Ryan Holmes, Cam Lafrance, Theo Hronowsky, Kenny Beaton, Sheldon Holmes, Ryan Gill, Stephen Scharfe, Grant Wallace, Sean Armstrong, and Colin Shibley.
Thanks again to ALL our Greely volunteers
Extra thanks to these people who went above and beyond their scheduled duties: Wallaces, Deavys, Holmes', Hughes', Charbonneaus, Timms, Rick Lafrance, and Rob Scharfe -- we honestly could not have done this tournament without your extra help!
August 3, 2009
It's GAME DAY!
We hope ALL the Major players have a GREAT time this week and while we're cheering on our Hawks, we do hope the teams from Casselman, Russell and Embrun have lots of FUN in their games and at the Skills Competition on Saturday!
Reminder to everyone, we will have a canteen with a BBQ with hamburgers, hot dogs, drinks, snacks all available throughout this playoff tournament!
We will also be selling raffle tickets for your chance to win a pair of 100-level Ottawa Senators tickets for the upcoming season!
Now.....LET'S PLAY BALL!!!!!!
July 27, 2009
We are the Champs!
Our Minor CRLL Aces All-Star team are District 6 Champions for the first time at any age level in recent memory!
After being down 7-3 to a strong Glebe team going into the final 2 innings on Monday night, things did not look good for our boys to pull off the victory. But guided by Head Coach Geoff Seguin, the team pulled together and scored some big runs to take a 10-7 lead with Glebe having just 3 more outs to try to get the lead back. And after Glebe scored 1 run, with 1 out, our own Greely Golden Hawk William Lachapelle came to the mound to try to nail down the 'save' and give us the victory -- and William struck out the first batter he faced on 3 straight strikes, then after a few more great pitches, he got the next batter to ground out to 3rd base to seal the Championship!!! The team went crazy with the win and they're very excited now that they move on to Oakville for the Provincials on Aug. 1st with the finals taking place on Aug. 7th.
Along with William (right in the photo), our other Greely Hawks on this historic Championship team are Alex Hughes (left in the photo) also from our Golden Hawks, and Michael Armstrong (center in photo) from our Black Hawks -- way to go boys! We know your Greely Head Coaches Rick Lafrance and Greg Crossett are VERY proud of you and what you accomplished!
We'll all be sure to follow your progress at the Provincials in Oakville!
UPDATE FROM OAKVILLE: Our District-6 Champion CRLL Minor Aces played well in their 1st contest for the first half of the game, but then they had a few errors that lead to a loss. But in our 2nd game against Brockville, our Aces were on fire as they played well for the whole game en route to a mercy win! Our boys couldn't quite ride that momentum as they lost their next game which, in this double-knockout tournament, sent them home. By all accounts, the boys had a GREAT time and represented our league with class! Congratulations to all the boys for making it to the Provincials (and for winning a game there!) and a LOT of credit should go to Head Coach Geoff Seguin for his tremendous job in guiding this group of Minor players! Hopefully Geoff will guide the Minor ship again next year with quite a few returning players!
July 26, 2009
Our Minor CRLL Aces have a chance at making history as they're 1 win away from winning the District!
For those who don't know. Our Major Aces with Greely Hawks Cam Lafrance and Ryan Gill had a good run going 3-and-2 losing to the champion Orleans team twice, but they beat Glebe, Gloucester and South Ottawa.
Our Junior Aces with Hawks Eric Bekkers, Alek Berthelet, Andrew Leung and Tristan Timm (and asst. coach Craig Richer) had a tough game versus the eventual champion South Ottawa team, but then our boys had a great game that they eventually lost by just 1 run in the last at-bat versus the Glebe/Gloucester combo team.
Our Seniors with Greely Hawk Chris Morin were in both their games but unfortunately lost both, 10-7 to Glebe/Gloucester and 12-8 to South Ottawa. Orleans beat South Ottawa in the final.
Good luck to Head Coach Geoff Seguin and the Minor Aces the rest of the way! We're cheering for you guys big time!!!
Ten of our Greely Hawks make their respective All-Star teams!
MINOR (in Rockland) -- Michael Armstrong, Alex Hughes and William Lachapelle
MAJOR (in Russell) -- Ryan Gill and Cam Lafrance
JUNIOR (in Orleans) -- Eric Bekkers, Alek Berthelet, Andrew Leung, and Tristan Timm (and Assistant Coach Craig Richer)
SENIOR (in Orleans) -- Chris Morin
Congrats boys --- great job making the teams --- we're sure you'll make us proud!
The schedules and park locations for all 4 Playdown tournaments can be found on this website:
Come on out and support your Greely Hawks teammates -- it'll be some great baseball to watch!
June 8, 2009
All 5 Greely Hawks teams had a great time despite not much on-field success
One of our teams that did quite well is our Minor Golden Hawks who easily won their first game over Pinecrest and moved on to the "A" Semi-Finals against East Nepean. Our Hawks spotted their opponents an early 10-run lead, but our feisty Greely boys, under the fantastic guidance of Head Coach Rick Lafrance, clawed their way back to within striking distance. Unfortunately the game time was up before Greely could come all the way back -- it's too bad because you had the feeling while watching that just one more inning would have allowed our Hawks to steal the win!
Also worth noting is our Junior team was mistakingly entered in the top "A" level of the 2 caliber pools. This was a mistake by the tournament organizers, and sure enough, in our first game, we got blown out 14-2 which was actually a pretty respectable score considering half our opposing players were taller than our coaches, and their pitching and catching were superb! But in our 2nd game, after spotting Pinecrest an 8-0 lead, our Hawks battled back to make it 10-9 after 2 innings -- each team exchanged a couple of runs over the next few innings, with our Hawks eventually losing just 14-11 against this "A" level team. Head Coach Craig Richer was extremely proud of his team considering the teams, and mostly the pitching, that we had to face --- it would have been very interesting to see how Greely would have done in the "B" division --- oh well, maybe next year!
Overall, all reports are that the kids had a great time -- and our coaches all know that at all 4 age levels, we have very young teams -- so if we enter this tournament again next year, most of the players will be in their 2nd year in the same age level they were in this year which would surely make a difference for on-field success!
Thanks to all our players and all our coaches for representing our Greely Hawks so well --- we heard nothing but positive comments from the organizers, umpires and even opposing teams/coaches about our organization!
June 5, 2009
All 5 of our Greely Hawks teams ready to play ball in a fun tournament this weekend!
The tournament is this weekend (June 6-7th) and open to registered house league teams only. All teams are guaranteed two games.
Pinecrest Little League's Spring Family Picnic day is an integral part of the weekend. It features a dunk tank, petting zoo, moon bounce and more. All players receive complimentary hot dog and pop.
Win or lose, our five Greely Hawks teams will surely have a blast playing ball this weekend and cheering eachother on in our games!
GO HAWKS GO!!
May 21, 2009
Nail-biter finish in Greely vs. Greely!
First ever showdown between two Greely Hawks teams was a classic battle to the end!
It was great to see all the players on the field and the dugouts with big smiles having a good time with their buddies from the Greely/Metcalfe area! And the stands were full of fun parents from our community who are clearly enjoying this home-town experience too! We're also very happy that both our Minor teams have terrific coaching staffs who are already doing a great job with our budding superstar players!
We look forward to the next two showdowns between these Greely teams in July -- it'll be especially interesting to see the improvement of all the young players by that time in the season!
Great job boys!
May 4, 2009
Coaching Clinic by a real Pro was a big success!
For over 4 hours, Mike put us all through the drills from jogging, to action warm-ups and stretches before demonstrating and having us do all the aspects on the baseball field. Even the very experienced coaches in our league certainly learned some new things as Mike was fantastic at breaking down all the basic steps to better play and teach the game.
We've heard nothing but positive feedback on the event, and we thank all the coaches who joined us --- it was especially important to see that all 5 of our Greely Hawks Head Coaches were there. Rick Lafrance, Greg Crossett, Jeff Gill, Craig Richer and Dennis Leung all came away with a lot more knowledge to pass along to our 65 players! Plus many Hawks assistant and practice coaches were there so they can be that much better at helping out!
Special thanks to Mike Kusiewicz for putting on a great clinic -- Greely Hawks Baseball will certainly be using your services more in the future!
Following many new players, sponsors are stepping up to the plate!
After 65 players have eagerly joined our Greely Hawks Baseball family, now the political and business community is coming on board with generous offers of support for our growing organization!
Our 5 Greely Hawks teams now have big sponsorship. First our "Grand Slam" sponsors from last season, Wallace Automobiles, Councillor Doug Thompson and Donnelly Automotive Group kindly renewed their sponsorship with us! And now we've confirmed two new team sponsors, TOMLINSON Group and Billings Bridge Animal Hospital, who kindly chipped in $500 each as "Grand Slam" sponsors!
We also now have some returning "Hit" Sponsors which you can see, along with all our generous sponsors, on the "Our UPDATED 2009 SPONSORS" page from the left side-bar menu. Please check out their Web sites if you're in need of any of their products or services.
Our sponsorship drive is on-going, and we are thrilled with the response so far! All with the goal of providing the best possible experience for the 65 local kids who will be sporting black and gold Greely Hawks jerseys this summer!
Thanks so much to our current and future sponsors!
Cheryl Deavy
Sponsorship Coordinator
Greely Hawks Baseball
April 17, 2009
Greely Hawks 'sign' local competitive ball player and high school teacher to help coach our Senior boys!
In a recent chat, Mike said: "I can't get enough of baseball and I'm happy to be helping out local players. I just want to give back to the game that I've loved since I was a little kid! I hope more local kids take up baseball, it's such a great game!"
Earlier in Mike's baseball career, his team won a Big-League Championship in 2000 and he's also gone to OFSAA (High School provincials) in 2001 where he played at the SkyDome (a personal baseball highlight).
Mike currently plays in the competitive National Capital Baseball League (http://nationalcapitalbaseball.com/) along with his 3 brothers on a team called Mudd. Mike is a primarily a Pitcher and also plays some Short-stop -- and as a batter, last season Mike had a .300+ batting average and lead his team in Stolen Bases. So, along with batting and fielding, Mike will be an expert at teaching our boys the art of pitching and base-running which are two key areas Head Coach Dennis Leung is happy to have extra help with.
Also, Mike is a teacher at Osgoode High School, so he's familiar with some of his new players and Mike is professionally trained and educated on teaching teenagers.
Welcome aboard Mike, and we thank you very much for committing what little time you have to our Senior Hawks boys!
March 3, 2009
It's now official, ALL 13 players from last season's Minor Hawks are coming back!
It would appear our Greely Minor Hawks players all enjoyed their first season with us as EVERY one of them are interested in coming back this season! While no official 'contracts' have been signed as of yet, and their agents are still trying to hammer out good deals for their clients, all 13 kids have said they intend on signing up at our registration dates! Returning for Minor ball will be Devon, Michael, Cole, Braeden, Owen, Will, and Payton.
11-12 year-olds getting a Major boost!
Of age to move up to Major ball this season are Grant, Carter, Jacob, Tyler, Stephen, and Sheldon -- that's quite an infusion of talent! Those rookie Major boys are joined by returning Majors Cam and the two Ryans (Gill & Holmes). Teams are not close to being formed yet -- in fact, there's a chance we'll have 2 Greely Hawks teams at Minor and/or Major -- but it's great to see so many Hawks coming back!
Popular player Mitchell Clarke will indeed by swinging a bat again for Greely!
Our Junior age level is looking strong too as returning veterans Ryan Gagnon, Alek, Fergie, and Kevin are joined by Junior rookies Joey, Alex, Eric, and Josh who have all expressed their interest in returning --- along with Mitchell Clarke whose 'agent' finally agreed to terms last night! And we hope popular Hawk Evan will also be coming back along with at least 2 new players Emma Wallace and Andrew Leung who have shown interest in becoming rookie Junior Hawks!
Senior team is looking like a hit!
Greely Hawks veterans Ricky Smith and Jason Deavy are feverishly working their magic to help us find any 15-16 year-old Greely/Metcalfe kids interested in playing hardball! Along with hoping the other 4 graduating Hawks (Chris, Kibby, Erich and Bryan) return, Ricky was able to get verbal commitments from SIX new players already! Keep up the great work boys, and we just might have enough players to form our own Greely Senior Hawks!
GHB 2009 Executive group coming together – Dale Poirier becomes most recent member, joining as our Coaching Mentor!
We've added a few new faces to our Greely Hawks Baseball Executive -- and as of March 3rd, Dale Poirier has kindly accepted our offer sheet to be our Coaching Mentor -- a role in which he will attend or help host any official coaching clinic and Dale will support our VP Baseball Operations Craig Richer to maintain our organization's fair and fun coaching standards for all our teams. Also, joining us officially is Rick Lafrance as our Player Development & Hitting Instructor -- Rick is excellent at teaching kids how to hit and he's great at running practices -- so, on top of coaching a Minor Hawks team (on which his youngest son Ryan will be a new Hawk), Rick will be running some pre-season sessions as well as attending some practices during the season of all our Hawks teams! Wendy Wallace is joining us as our Treasurer & Registrar which clearly puts our money and registrations in very capable hands! Greg Crossett will be our Umpire-in-Chief where he will act as the liaison between the league's head umpires and our Greely boys and girls in blue! And Cheryl Deavy will be our new Sponsorship Coordinator where she will surely do a bang-up job helping our organization receive support from generous businesses in and around our community! Of course, all of these Executive members are working together with the guidance of our President Kim Richer who's heavily involved in all aspects of our organization and who represents Greely Hawks Baseball at the many official league meetings.
Second registration night changed to March 18th
We received confirmation today that our second registration night will not be on March 11th, instead it will be a week later -- Wed. March 18th -- still from 7-9pm.....and the first registration day remains Sat. March 7th from 9am-noon -- both at the Greely Community Centre.
Reminder that the 2009 registration form is available on this site, and if you can't make it to one of our registration dates, you're welcome to mail it to us along with your 2 cheques.
Let's Play Ball!!!!
Senior team is looking like a hit!
Greely Hawks veterans Ricky Smith and Jason Deavy are feverishly working their magic to help us find any 15-16 year-old Greely/Metcalfe kids interested in playing hardball! Along with hoping the other 4 graduating Hawks (Chris, Kibby, Erich and Bryan) return, Ricky was able to get verbal commitments from SIX new players already! Keep up the great work boys, and we just might have enough players to form our own Greely Senior Hawks!
GHB 2009 Executive group coming together – Dale Poirier becomes most recent member, joining as our Coaching Mentor!
We've added a few new faces to our Greely Hawks Baseball Executive -- and as of March 3rd, Dale Poirier has kindly accepted our offer sheet to be our Coaching Mentor -- a role in which he will attend or help host any official coaching clinic and Dale will support our VP Baseball Operations Craig Richer to maintain our organization's fair and fun coaching standards for all our teams. Also, joining us officially is Rick Lafrance as our Player Development & Hitting Instructor -- Rick is excellent at teaching kids how to hit and he's great at running practices -- so, on top of coaching a Minor Hawks team (on which his youngest son Ryan will be a new Hawk), Rick will be running some pre-season sessions as well as attending some practices during the season of all our Hawks teams! Wendy Wallace is joining us as our Treasurer & Registrar which clearly puts our money and registrations in very capable hands! Greg Crossett will be our Umpire-in-Chief where he will act as the liaison between the league's head umpires and our Greely boys and girls in blue! And Cheryl Deavy will be our new Sponsorship Coordinator where she will surely do a bang-up job helping our organization receive support from generous businesses in and around our community! Of course, all of these Executive members are working together with the guidance of our President Kim Richer who's heavily involved in all aspects of our organization and who represents Greely Hawks Baseball at the many official league meetings.
Second registration night changed to March 18th
We received confirmation today that our second registration night will not be on March 11th, instead it will be a week later -- Wed. March 18th -- still from 7-9pm.....and the first registration day remains Sat. March 7th from 9am-noon -- both at the Greely Community Centre.
Reminder that the 2009 registration form is available on this site, and if you can't make it to one of our registration dates, you're welcome to mail it to us along with your 2 cheques.
Let's Play Ball!!!!
August 8, 2008
Our Greely Major Hawks finish in 1st place!
Rick was the trick to Hawks hitting machine!
Another key to our Major team's success was the incredible teaching methods of practice coach Rick Lafrance who's a master at teaching kids how to hit a baseball. In fact, starting in the 2009 season, Rick will become a Greely Hawks Executive member as the official "Player Development & Hitting Instructor" for all Greely Hawks players at all age levels! This is great news for our teams as Rick will run some indoor pre-season practices as well as attend several Hawks practices throughout the season giving all our Hawks the chance to develop into strong hitters! Our other three 11-year-olds on the 2008 Major team -- Daniel Donnelly, Mitch Baar and Sam Tremblay -- all contributed key plays throughout the season. So all those Major rookies were a great supporting cast for our exceptional 12-year-olds -- Mitchell Clarke, Josh Kemp, Joey Kidney, Alex Séguin, Liam Morrow and Eric Bekkers -- who all have terrific skills at various aspects of baseball. Those 6 boys are all eligible to move up to Junior ball in 2009 where they should blossom with the larger ball park dimensions along with the added nuance of actual base stealing. It was a GREAT Major season boys -- and good luck on your Greely Hawks teams in 2009!
Major Playoff Schedule (Excel File)
Major Playoffs update and, more importantly, a big loss in our coaching community
UPDATED SAT. AUG. 9th @ 11:35PM — Unfortunately, our 1st-place Greely Hawks were upset again tonight and are out of the playoffs. But hold your heads up high guys -- over a 16-game season, we finished in 1st-place in a league with very strong teams -- but over these 2 playoff games, things simply didn't go our way....
Tragedy for our friends in Russell
We at Greely Hawks Baseball, especially the many of us who have been connected to the Russell community over the years, offer our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Minor Russell Blue Jays' Head Coach Greg Adamczyk who left this world way too young. Our hearts go out to his wife, Sara and his young daughter, Megan. Many of us in the baseball community of course know his son Jacob best. Jacob has been an energetic and dynamic baseball and hockey teammate of many of our saddened Greely Hawks. All you have to do is look at the CRLL Minor All-Star team photo in this year's playoff program to see Jacob 'front-row-center' with his familiar grin to remind us of his contagiously funny character.
One thing's for sure, few of us have ever seen a Dad and son who love eachother more than Greg and Jacob – those two idolized eachother. We will miss your LOUD voice at the ball parks and arenas Greg, especially this week and weekend during the playoffs where you would have been in your glory being Jacob's biggest fan and best coach ever! But we know you would want the boys and girls to hit the fields and PLAY BALL while you surely shout down from above! So many players will step up to the plate this week, in dedication to you....
You were as proud a Dad as we've ever met, and I'm sure you know that your always passionate spirit will continue to live on through your always enthusiastic son Jacob.
Rest in peace Greg....
July 28, 2008
Greely Hawks Baseball is hosting the CRLL Minor Playoffs Aug. 5th-9th!
Our new organization is very proud to be hosting the CRLL Minor Playoffs during the week of Aug. 5th-9th at Andy Shields Park in Greely!
There will be 7 teams competing with 2 teams each from Embrun, Casselman, and Russell and, of course, our very own Greely Minor Hawks! Games will be held on Tuesday Aug. 5th, Wednesday Aug. 6th, Thursday Aug. 7th and 4 games on Saturday Aug. 9th including the "A" and "B" Finals!
We will also be challenging the players with an exciting Skills Competition on the Saturday when players from all the teams will display their prowess at hitting, running, throwing/catching and pitching!
Our Greely Junior Hawks families have kindly offered to host a BBQ/Canteen for all game days, so bring your appetites and enjoy some great food!
There will also be some great prizes for all the players, and special extra prizes for the 4 teams in the two Final games!
For playoff information, including the schedule and rules, click on the sidebar link "Minor Playoff Information" which will be updated regularly with the team seeding and game results and ensuing playoff match-ups!
We at Greely Hawks Baseball wish all the players the best of luck in these playoffs, and we hope a good time will be had by all!
Kim Richer
President
Greely Hawks Baseball
2kim4sports@gmail.com
June 9, 2008
Our Minor Greely Hawks soar at Pinecrest Tournament!
Our boys impressed many as they easily won their 1st game and moved on to the "A-side" Semi-Finals!
Our Minor Hawks coaches and players didn't know what to expect coming into this tournament as not one of our players have ever even played hardball before this season, much less in the competitive atmosphere of a tournament! But our Minor Hawks come out strong and beat the Pinecrest Sox by 10 runs to move on to the "A-side" Semi-Finals against a team from East Nepean who are always strong. It was a close battle for the first 2 innings, but East Nepean would steal home several times en route to a solid victory. But, as our Head Coach Kent Holmes pointed out to his Minor Hawks, this East Nepean team was an assembled team of elite players from the top level of their league – so our Hawks should feel no shame in defeat, in fact, we showed that if we fine tune a couple of things, we can surely compete with elite teams! So congratulations to our Minor Hawks who played so well in this tournament — Braedan, Owen, Jacob, Cole, Sheldon, William, Payton, Devon, Stephen, Carter, Grant and Tyler! Well done boys!
Our Major Hawks also played extremely well and had the opportunity to win both our games, but it just wasn't meant to be on this day. The first game against the Pinecrest Neptunes simply didn't go Greely's way as a few missed strike calls and untimely Hawks errors lead to many unwarranted Pinecrest runs – but our Hawks battled back to make it close only to lose by 4-5 runs. In our "B-side" Semi-Final game, we played awesome in our first 2 innings in building a 6-7 run lead. But the wheels would fall off in the final 2 innings as the Kanata team scatched away at our lead to eventually win the game by just 2 runs! Despite the two losses, the good news is our Major Hawks were clearly good enough to compete and even could have easily won both games, and we'll learn from our mistakes and be a better team in our league because of this experience! All 10 Major Hawks who participated in this tourney — Daniel, Gilly, Josh, Eric, Mitchell C, Ryan H, Joey, Alex, Cam, and Sam — get full credit from Head Coach Craig Richer not only for playing hard, but also for showing great team spirit in cheering eachother on!
Our Junior Hawks knew they would face a stiff test against some elite competition at this higher level of baseball, so our team went into this tourney with the right attitude lead by Head Coach Ron Winges. Their first game against the Pinecrest Sox started off badly for Greely as the Sox seemed to hit the ball wherever they wanted. It didn't help that our team was missing some key players for this game – our boys on hand tried hard but ended up losing by 10 runs. In the "B-side" Semi-Final game, we were facing a very polished team from Verdun Québec, and they too showed their prowess on their way to a convincing victory. But there were many positives in our Junior team's two games as we had some pitchers rise to the occasion throwing many strikes, and we also had some terrific hits against really tough pitchers! And again, our Greely Hawks team spirit was great as our boys were having a great time together despite losing. So, while the Junior Hawks didn't win, these 13 boys who took part on the weekend represented Greely very well — Alek, Elliot, Jason, Kevin, Daniel, Ryan, Chris, Evan, Kibby, Ricky, Bryan, Erich and Steven!
Check out our "Photo Albums" section to see many great pics of the boys taken from the weekend! Also check out the "Unofficial Greely Hawks Mascot" album for pics of the cutest baby ever! (not that we're at all biased!)
