Diamonds Score First Win

Behind the right arm of ace starter Eric Foley, the York Diamonds snapped their three game season opening winless skid with a 6-3 win over the Mississauga A's last Thursday at Keelesdale Park.
Foley went all the way scattering 7 hits, while striking out 10. Emerick Kriz took the loss for the A's, and Hugh Dawkins pitched 4 excellent innings in relief.

York jumped ahead 2-0 in the first on a Rudy Naraine double, and a Paul Freeman single, and both scored on wild pitches. In the second the Diamonds tallied three more on a Rick Purewal walk, a Naraine triple, a Freeman walk, a Rob Hofstetter sacrifice fly, and a Jeff Hofstetter double. In the fifth York scored again after a Greg Shannon bases loaded walk.

The A's scored one in the seventh on a Mike Bruce RBI single, and 2 in the 8th to make it close, but Foley slammed the door to earn his first win of the season.

Hitting leaders for the A's were Mike Bruce and Joe Rolston with 2 hits apiece. York was led by Rudy Naraine who finished a homer short of the cycle and Jeff Hofstetter who had two more hits to raise his average to .467. The league's leading hitter, Rob Hofstetter was 1-1 to up his average to a lofty .667. Hofstetter also walked, hit a sacrifice fly, and was hit by a pitch. The game also marked the return of veteran York catcher Don Cantwell, who walked in both of his trips to the plate.

Manager Paul Freeman met the media, while munching on a side salad at a local Dairy Queen and had this to say: "Well we got the monkey off of our backs finally. We played well, except for a few bouts of how shall I say this, 'creative' baserunning. Four guys thrown out on the bases is way too much. But other than that it was a solid game, Eric threw the hell out of the ball, and Rudy and Jeff had big nights offensively. It was nice to see Hawk back at the ballpark and hopefully his shin will be ok. We have a tough schedule coming up with our next 6 games, being the Colts 3 times, the Cardinals twice, and the Falcons once, so we should know a lot more about what kind of team we have by the end of this stretch."

Next game is Thursday night versus the Mississauga Colt 45s where the first 10 fans will get to to torch DVD highlights of York's 2003 Finals loss to the Colts...it should be especially enjoyable not having to watch the footage day after day

Date: May 20, 2004     Time: 7:30pm      Venue: Keelesdale Park