We’re baaaaaack!
Apologies for the short hiatus there 5 Toolers, a busy time of the year for the coaches! No excuses though, the 5 Tool newsletter is back and here to stay, on a 2-3 newsletters-per-month basis! There was lots of action in the last couple weeks to highlight, Fall Ball has officially wrapped up and the champions have been crowned! Plus, we are just days away from winter training starting and less than a month to go before the Travel teams head to Vegas! Let’s dive in…
Fall Ball Review and Championship Highlights - 5 Tool Baseball has just finished our second year of hosting our own Fall Ball league. This fall we had over 100 kids from ages 9-13 play between the 11U and 13U age groups. The championship games were played last week, both games were exciting and came right down to the wire! The 11U Champions, The Angry Birds, took home the Golden Birdcage after a 7-5 Victory, details below! As for the 13U final… We’ll get into that farther along in the newsletter… It was a great success all fall long and the coaches loved the energy of the teams as well as being able to put on a mini-league exclusively for our 5-Tool players. Next year we hope to go even bigger! So, tell your friends and teammates, 5 Tool is the place to be for fall baseball! A huge shoutout is in order to our players and their parents, as without their dedication and commitment to 5 Tool Baseball, we would not have been able to run such a fun and entertaining fall season. You all are the reason why Fall Ball was such a success! Let’s keep it going next year and beyond!!
11U FALL CHAMPIONSHIP - What an exciting final it was between Coach Bob’s Angry Birds and Coach Sammy’s Golden Eagles. The best 11U teams all fall destined to meet in the final, and they did not disappoint! But before we get into the game itself, we hosted a skills competition before the Championship that featured a Homerun Derby, Base Race, Relay Race and more! The skills event was definitely the highlight for the 11U league, as this is a tradition we hope to keep alive for all age groups moving forward! Who doesn’t love hitting tanks for prizes??? Here are your 2022 Fall Ball skills competition champions! Congratulations to the winners!!!
Bunt Accuracy Champion: Dylan “Joe D” Bielli
Base Race: Golden Eagles
8-Player Relay Race: Penguinos
Fly Ball Challenge: Hudson “Hi-Def” DeFrenza, Kaden “The Professor” Li, Henry “Doctor” Strange
Throwing Accuracy: Keaton “Ka-Kching” Kurucz
HOMERUN DERBY CHAMPION: Dayyan “The Fresh Prince” Samsudeen
SKILLS COMP GRAND CHAMPIONS: GOLDEN EAGLES (Coach Sam Siddall)
The Championship final was a back-and-forth effort all game. Fall League MVP Ava Dawson started the game on the mound for Coach Sam and the Golden Eagles and did exactly what Ava does, threw some heat! The Eagles scored early and often, jumping out to a multi-run lead thanks to a HR-Derby-Champ-Dayyan-Samsudeen-double. By the third inning, clearly Coach Sam had made those Angry birds even angrier because they woke up their bats in a hurry! Aggressive baserunning, clutch hits and a few costly errors from the Eagles left the game tied 4-4 halfway through. Strong at bats from Austin Carpenter and Oliver Toigo in the bottom of the 5th left runners on for big Ryan Murray, and he came through with a scorcher off the bat that the Golden Eagle fielders couldn’t quiet down! A 7-5 lead into the 6th was all that Ryan needed as he stepped onto the mound for the Championship save... 9 pitches, 9 strikes, 3 strikeouts, Immaculate Inning, BALLGAME! Needless to say, Ryan Murray was our Championship game MVP, as the first immaculate inning in 5-Tool fall ball history is a pretty good way to close out the championship game! Congratulations to Ryan, Coach Bob and the entire Angry Birds team! 2022 11U FALL CHAMPIONS!
13U FALL CHAMPIONSHIP - Our 13U final was another great game on a cold Wednesday night last week. The Championship Final featured the #2 seeded Green Monsters, managed by Coach Doug, and the #4 seeded Big Red Machine, managed by Coach Ryan. A little retrospect first; coach Ryan’s team started the fall season 0-4, playing like they were destined for the bottom seed, but snapped out of the losing streak in a big way by winning 6 straight games before making the final! For a 13U fall game, this one had it all! There was a darkness delay since the city didn’t turn the lights on, candy was thrown from the press box to scrums of players below, homerun robberies, great pitching and an even better finish by the Champions!!
The Big Red Machine and The Green Monsters warming up before the Final
Here were the starting lineups (with a twist) for Coach Doug’s Green Monsters and Coach Ryan’s Big Red Machine:
Big Red Machine (Visitors) The Green Monsters (Home)
“The Kobster” Kobe Khoo 1. “Cool-Nate” Depicciotto
Benny “The Jet” McGauley 2. Jack “J-Dogg” Riley
“Automatic” Alex Tamayo 3. Jaxxon “JFlow” Lawrence
Naden “Chuckles” Andersen 4. Caleb “Yubbs” Miller
Dane “Moneybags” Preece 5. Jonah “Siggy” Sigurdson
Jaxon “Jax” VanDerHidje 6. “Hugtavious” Hugo McDonald
Niall “Tiger” Woods 7. Adam “The Sherriff” Marshall
Crosby “Thing 1” Sengara 8. Jesse “J-Bone” Vance
Gabe “Thing 2” Sengara 9. Wyatt “Moose” Spence
Isaac “The Terminator” Poon 10. Aiden “Bobblehead” Pedersen
Cole “Bomb-Baby” Abbott
Jesse Vance (left) and Benny McGauley (right) square off prior to first pitch of the Championship Game
Adam Marshall started the championship final for the Green Monsters, and the Big Red Machine took advantage early as Benny McGauley, reaching base on a walk, was driven in by an Alex Tamayo double ripped off the wall. Green responded instantly, scoring a run in the bottom half off a Caleb Miller single, which scored Jaxxon Lawrence after he was walked and stole second. Green wouldn’t let off the gas from there, as Jesse Vance and Nate Depiciotto threw scoreless 2nd and 3rd innings for Coach Doug while the offense went to work! Leading 2-1 heading into the bottom half of the 3rd, darkness set in and we had to delay the game while we waited for the field lights to be turned on. During the delay, those in attendance saw Nate D try to hit in the dark, kids wrestling for Halloween candy while Coach Matt launched the treats from the scorer’s box, players dancing to the YMCA and of course the short-lived dance battle between Kobe Khoo and Nate. When the lights came on and play resumed, Coach Ryan decided to leave the same pitcher on the bump for the Machine, leading to costly errors and hit by pitches from the defensive side. Caleb Miller drove a ball to deep centerfield that was caught, but a run scored on the sacrifice fly putting Green up 6-1 after 3 innings. The Big Red Machine had their biggest bat coming up in the top of the 4th though as Alex Tamayo, who was tied for the Fall lead in homeruns, launched a moonshot deep into the night at Latrace to not only chip away at Green’s lead, but also secure his title as Fall Ball Homerun King. The momentum grew for Red, as Dane Preece lit up the radar with 3 straight K’s in the bottom half, sending Red down 4 runs into the 5th inning. Base hits by Benny Mcgauley, Niall Woods and Gabe Sengara combined with some timely stolen bases from Niall and the Sengara twins left us with a TIE GAME!!! Naden Andersen was handed the ball to keep the Green Monsters at bay before the 6th and final inning. The lights got a bit bright while the pressure was on for team Red, as Green scored 2 runs in the bottom half off of throwing errors. The dagger shot came from none other than Caleb Miller, who scorched an opposite field RBI-single off of Naden to push Green’s lead to 3… And guess who came in to close out the Championship for Coach Doug… Yup (or should we say “Yubbs”), Caleb came out to finish the job himself. Caleb struck out The Red Machine in order on 12 pitches, dominating the heart of Red’s lineup and securing the 9-6 Championship Victory for the GREEN MONSTERS!!! There you have it! The GREEN MONSTERS are your 5 Tool Fall Ball CHAMPIONS of 2022! Caleb finished the game 2-2 with 4RBI’s and of course the 3-strikeout save, earning him Championship MVP Honours! Coach Doug and the team were awarded the golden bat, the 13U championship trophy, which has the names of each championship roster engraved on the side!
Caleb Miller solidifies his MVP performance with a strikeout to end the game and win the Fall Championship for The Green Monsters
Another huge shoutout to all the fall ball players, coaches and parents, who gave up so much of their time to allow us to put on a fantastic Fall Season, we can’t wait for next year! Congratulations to Caleb, Coach Doug and the entire Green Monsters team, who played a fantastic Championship fall season!
Winter Training Sessions start this Week! It’s the busiest time of year! Winter training at the ballyard is about to take off into high gear this week, as we have almost 100 kids signed up and ready to rip it up in the cages this winter! Parents; we are going to be using a scheduling website/phone app called Team Linkt, this will be your one stop shop for all schedules, availability and information regarding the 11U, 13U, 15U and Travel Team’s training sessions this winter. Please make sure to look out for emails from TeamLinkt later today to sign you and your players up to be able to access the schedules and RSVP’s for the practices over the course of the winter training season. If there are any parents still yet to pay or set up a payment plan with Coach Jack, please do so as soon as possible!
WINTER MERCH ORDERS ARE HERE!!! - If you haven’t heard, our winter merchandise catalog was released over the weekend! We have brand new t-shirts, hoodies, toques, jackets and more ready for order so make sure you get your orders in! The final day to submit an order is tomorrow, Wednesday November 2nd. We realize that this is very short notice for those who aren’t involved with any travel teams but don’t worry you have until midnight tomorrow, lots of time to get an order in since it only takes 5 minutes to fill out the form! Plus, limited extra quantities will be ordered to be sold out of our offices at the ballyard to those who do not submit an order. If you’re really broken up about not getting gear this fall do not fret, we will be doing another order in the new year and relatively regularly after that! All order sheets must be dropped off at the Ballyard (2611 Viscount Way, Richmond) by tomorrow night OR for a better option please send in your order attached to an email sent to 5toolgear@gmail.com !!! Below you will find the 3 pages of the order sheet, you should easily be able to copy or save the catalog screenshots from this section and use them to submit your order! If you are having trouble with the catalog images below, then please email 5toolgear@gmail.com to request an order form sent directly to your email. Coach Jack and Fourteen Athletics worked really hard to put the merchandise designs and quantities together, you need this new gear! Have any friends or teammates not with 5 Tool Baseball? Send them the catalog as well! Our goal is to get our logo out there in the baseball world as much as possible, and by representing your program you are not only helping us accomplish this but, you’ll look great doing it too!
That’s all for this newsletter! Thanks to all you who take the time to sign up and read our newsletters, we really appreciate it and can’t thank you enough for helping 5 Tool continue to grow as the best baseball training company in the Lower Mainland!
5 Tool Newsletter November 1st 2022
5 Tool Baseball Inc.