IBL Report
August 1, 2014 - International Basketball League (IBL) News Release
Hamilton 5 Toronto 4
The Hamilton Cardinals travelled to Toronto for the IBL Wild Card game Thursday night and edged the hometown Maple Leafs 5-4 to reach the next round of the playoffs.
After a scoreless first inning, Hamilton put four on the board in the second and another run in the fourth inning to go up 5-1. Toronto did not cave and battled back though scoring in the sixth and twice more in the seventh to cut the lead to one. Hamilton's bullpen was able to prevent any further damage and shut down the Toronto bats over the final two innings. Tomas Rincon pitched a scoreless eighth, striking out two, and Johnathan Solazzo recorded the save in the ninth. Solazzo had a busy night as he was also the starting third basemen for Hamilton and had two hits including a double and drove in a run.
The Cardinal's Brett van Pelt took the win going 6 1/3 innings striking out three batters and throwing 70 of his 100 pitches for strikes. Hamilton leadoff hitter, centrefielder Andris Rizquez, drove in two runs and stole a base while Dre Celestijn drove in another two runs with two of his own hits.
Toronto's Marek Deska took the loss going four innings and giving up five runs on eight hits and one walk while striking out five. The Maple Leaf's bullpen did an admirable job shutting down the Cardinals the rest of the way and allowing Toronto to get back in the game. Justin Lawrence and Justin Cicatello combined to throw five shutout innings after taking over for Deska. Toronto's Damon Topolie hit a home run and drove in two runs to lead the Maple Leaf attack.
Hamilton will face off against the third place Kitchener Panthers in a best of seven series with dates to be scheduled shortly.
Kitchener 21 Burlington 7
If the Kitchener Panthers were looking for a game to send them into the playoffs on a high note, they found it Thursday night with a 21-7 blowout of Burlington. The game closed out the regular season for both teams with both heading in different directions. The Panthers finished the season with a 19-17 record in third place while the Bandits finished out of the playoff picture with a 9-27 record.
Kitchener scored the first four runs and put it away with a huge 10-run fifth inning, finishing the game with 17 hits. Tanner Nivens and Scott David had four hits each for the Panthers. Mike McGillivray took the win despite rough start giving up six runs on nine hits and three walks but the potent offence bailed him out. Evan DiMichele took the loss giving up giving up eight runs on eight hits and three walks over 4 1/3 innings.
With the game being a bit anti-climactic for both teams, several players had standout performances and collected big numbers to bolster already strong seasons.
Kitchener's Sean Reilly narrowly missed the IBL triple crown by finishing second to Barrie's Jordan Castaldo by a mere .006 percentage points with a bating average of .408. Reilly led the league in RBI with 43 and tied for the league lead in home runs with 15. Reilly's teammate Tanner Nivens had a huge night including two home runs tying him for the league lead at 15. Nivens drove in seven runs during the games to give him 39 on the season. The Bandits Jose Torralba hit his second home run of the season.
While the playoff games have yet to be scheduled, the Panthers learned who their first round opponent would when the Hamilton Cardinals won a tight Wild Card game over Toronto.
• Discuss this story on the International Basketball League message board...
International Basketball League Stories from August 1, 2014
- IBL Report - IBL
- IBL Report - IBL
The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.
