Nak’azdli Chiefs pitcher Clint Sam lived every fastball player’s worst nightmare Sunday afternoon on the ball diamond at Carrie Jane Gray Park.
Already trailing 7-0 to the Big Guy Lake Blazers in the Canada Day fastpitch tournament junior championship game with two out in the first inning, the tall Chiefs’ chucker from Fort St. James was hit on the side of his head by a line drive off the bat of Blazers hitter Richard French.
Sam fell to the field clutching his head but never lost consciousness. The ball appeared to deflect slightly off his glove but that didn’t do much to slow it down before it hit him.
“It just hurt – I felt dizzy and dropped,” said the 18-year-old Sam. “That’s the first time I got hit in the head by a ball but I’ve been hit (in the body) every weekend at least once.”
The Blazers scored eight runs in the first inning and two more in the second, then leaned on the pitching of Brydon Lessard to get the job done early – a 10-0 mercy-rule decision that went just three innings.
“This was a really good game, we did what we needed to do, we were getting good hits and played solid defence,” said Blazers catcher Craig Budskin. “Our coaches (Darrell Gervais and Mike Sutton) told us before the game, start early so we could get them down on themselves with the runs we scored, and scoring eight runs in the first inning really made a big difference.
“Brydon was pitching really well this weekend, some of the best pitching he’s done recently since I’ve caught for him.”
The Blazers batted around the order in the first inning. Leadoff hitter Jeremy Frame got it started when he laid his bat out in front of the pitch and sent the ball rolling in the infield, skirting the first-base line for a triple. A couple of passed balls led to two more Blazer runs before Curtis Carpenter came up to bat with the bases loaded. His double to right field scored two more runs and the rout was on.
“We just went hard on the bats that first inning and that helps me out as pitcher,” said Lessard.
“I felt pretty good out there.”
Ethan Abraham came out to pitch the second inning for the Chiefs but the damage was already done.
“I’m really surprised (Sam) came back into the game, but he toughed it out, he handled that a lot better than most people would,” said Budskin.
The Chiefs were playing their third game of the day. To advance to the final they needed a big comeback in the semifinal, rallying from a 5-0 deficit to defeat Moricetown 12-5, after starting Sunday with an early-morning win over Burns Lake.
“We just couldn’t hit after playing three games, we were all tired out,” said Sam, who will be part of Team B.C. for the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) in Toronto, July 14-23. “We did good this weekend, we had a lot of comebacks and made some nice plays.”
Big Guy Lake defended its Canada Day junior title from last year, opening with a 6-3 win Friday over the Chiefs, then beating the Burns Lake Bandits and Moricetown to move on to the final.
The Blazers split their squad to enter a team in the Canada Day men’s tournament as well.
Budskin and Lessard will join Wacey Strongfeather, Brandon Thomas, Jeremy Gervais, Jarin Sutton, Devin Sutton, Joel Patsey and Jerricko Prince on the Blazers team that will play in the under-23 aboriginal national championships in Edmonton, Aug. 4-6.
Blazers Budskin, Lessard and Tyson Ghostkeper, along with Sam and Ethan Abraham of the Chiefs, made the cut for the B.C. team to play in the NAIG under-19 tournament. Randy Potskin is the head coach.
The U-15 NAIG team will include French, Ethan Lans and Kaelon Gibbs, all of the junior Blazers, as well as Brady Potskin and Derian Potskin of Prince George, and Burns Lake players Brady Perry and Craig Patrick Jr. Evan Potskin of Prince George will be the U-15 team head coach.
• In the men’s final of the Canada Day tournament, the Westbank Cardinals – the defending native Canadian champion – defeated the NB Hawks 3-1.
The game was played late Sunday night.
