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Old Sox mosquitoes take down Chatham

Tillsonburg Old Sox mosquitoes defeated Chatham 13-8 Sunday afternoon in an OBA B/C baseball bracket playoff game at the Tillsonburg Optimist diamond.

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The Old Sox mosquitoes are competing in a first-round three-team playoff bracket.

“We’ve beat them (Chatham) twice and we’ve lost to Listowel twice,” said Tillsonburg mosquito coach Dave Hodges.

Bracket 3 teams will play six first-round games in total.

Leamington, two LaSalle teams and Kingsville are in an Essex County bracket, and Waterdown, Beamsville, Pelham and Muskoka are in Bracket 2, both playing double round-robin series.

Bracket playoffs started July 30 and are scheduled to end Aug. 15. The teams will be seeded from 1-11 and Round 2 (finals) starts Aug. 18 and ends Sept. 6 with red, blue and green champions.

The Old Sox mosquitoes did not have a 2020 season and most of the players have come up from the 2019 rookie team.

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They did not have a lot of time to put the team together and sort things out in the field.

“Nope,” Hodges laughed. “It was ‘hey we can play ball’. As soon a Baseball Ontario said it was okay, it was ‘tryouts next week, let’s go.’ So it’s been a crazy year.”

It was the same everywhere – excited players, excited coaches and parents.

“Everyone’s first year pitching – I’m trying to pitch everyone… trying to. With the weird schedule it’s tough,” he noted.

“I had most of these kids two years ago with the (rookie) pitching machine. I’ll be honest, it’s going better than I expected.”

In the last two years, the group has grown in size and skill. They are bigger, stronger and faster on the bases.

“They all have, for sure,” said Hodges. “Thursday, one of our players hit it about 20 metres from the (outfield fence) track.”

Tillsonburg plays its regular season in Southern Counties and they have only lost one game so far.

“Right now it’s double-headers on weekends and two (SCBA) games through the week. So we’re playing a full season in like a month-and-a-half. Practices? Practices have slowed down with all the games.”

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