It will be remembered as one of the epic championship game battles in the long history of the May Days Men's Fastball Tournament that even outlasted one of the weekend's popular venues.
The Sunday festivities at Memorial Park had wrapped-up by the time the Ladner Royals had pulled out a dramatic 6-5 13-inning victory over the Ladner Masters.
"Typically we all head to the beer garden (afterwards) but it was closed by the time we had finished," chuckled tournament director and Masters coach Doug Pettigrew. "It was quite the ball game."
In what was a rematch of the 2011 final, which also saw the Royals prevail, the teams were tied at 2-2 at the end of seven innings when the international tiebreaker rule (a runner starts the inning on second base) was enforced.
Three times, the "visiting" Masters managed to take the lead and were one out from winning the game when the Royals produced a clutch hit to extend the drama and eventually prevail.
Pitcher Greg Harvie went 12 and 2/3 innings to get the win. It was a bittersweet afternoon for Masters workhorse Sam Aldridge who got the win over the Richmond Canadians to put his team in the first place game, only to take the loss in the marathon final. He worked 20 innings in total over the two games.
"We left a lot of runners in scoring position and the inability to push that second run came back to haunt us," added Pettigrew. "But give the Royals a lot of credit to keep battling back the way they did."
The two rivals had also met Sunday morning in the double knockout affair with the Royals exploding for five unanswered runs for a 7-2 win to send the Masters to the loser's bracket.
