The B&B Excavating Diggers found sweet revenge against the Nova Reinforcing Juniors with a mercy win to close off the season at the top of the Howe Sound Men's Fastball League (HSMFL) on Tuesday (July 15).The champagne flowed in the dugout after the Diggers bounced back from last week's 10-2 loss to the young team."It was great - last time we played them they kicked the piss out of us so it was nice to get our confidence back," said pitcher Kevin Naswell, who only allowed a single run in the 8-1 victory."When everyone's here we have a really good squad. Everyone can hit the ball and put the ball in play and we were doing that tonight."Already ahead 5-1, the Diggers batters got on a roll in the bottom of the sixth inning hoping to bury the Juniors with relentless hitting. Catcher Shaun Hicks started off the assault with a well-placed bunt as he was able to outrun pitcher Bob Versluis's scrambling toss.The bunt perhaps caught the Juniors off-guard since Hicks was good for an earlier triple to left field, which triggered a four-run third inning. Hicks was quick to steal second base on a loose pitch.Kevin Schellenberg hit a difficult pop up in between second base and right field which the Juniors were unable to track down. With Hicks on third and Schellenberg on first, Kim Stanley tapped an RBI single before Naswell nailed an RBI double line drive to left field to up the score to 7-1.Michel Lafreniere followed Stanley's line exactly, knocking another line drive to left field to make the score 8-1.The Juniors couldn't fire up their own bats so the umpire enforced the mercy rule on the seven-run gap.By finishing the league in first place, the Diggers face the bottom-seeded Masters in the first round of the playoffs starting Tuesday (July 22). Naswell said the team isn't going into the best-of-three series too cocky since the Masters have proved challenging competition throughout the season."They still have a good team. They've got a couple of chuckers and they've got some guys who can hit the ball too."They're not a slouching team - we've played them this year and they actually beat us at the beginning of the season," he said.Still, the 4-12-1 Masters are the definite underdogs versus the 13-4-1 Diggers.Meanwhile, the Hunter John Co. Ltd. Wizards will face the Juniors in the other series. With one game remaining for both teams, it looks like the 10-6-1 Wizards will take second and the 9-9-0 Juniors will finish in third place.The Wizards helped their cause in Tuesday's early game with a 12-2 crushing of the Masters.Playoff action starts when the Diggers play the Masters at 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday (July 22) and continues at 8:30 p.m. when the Wizards face the Juniors. The series continues with the same times the following Thursday and Friday.
