Frank Rizzo | Democrat Stone Arch Inn third baseman Aaron Dinkel reaches in vain for what turned out to be a double by Ron’s Ringer’s Ken “Motown” Morris in last Sunday’s first championship game of the Delaware Youth Center Tournament.

Ron’s can field, hit and win

Story by Frank Rizzo
CALLICOON — June 11, 2013 — CALLICOON — Old arms, young bats and sharp fielding combined to add another trophy to Ron’s Ringers’ overloaded case last weekend at the Delaware Valley Youth Center Tournament in Callicoon.
Named after longtime pitcher/captain Ron Canfield, the Ringers overcame Stone Arch Inn (SAI) in consecutive games to win the double-elimination tourney. They had dropped the winners’ bracket tilt to SAI.
Entry fees from 10 teams, food and beverage sales, raffles and umpires working at a reduced rate combined to add nearly $4,000 to the Center’s coffers.
In getting to the championship game, SAI opened with a 14-3 romp over Kohler Lumber, downed Matthews on Main 8-2 and Ratner & Son Paving 12-4 before handing the Ringers their first loss, 8-4. Except for the tourney opener, hurled by Pat Collins, Tim “Chopper” Ackermann was on the mound for all the victories.
Ron’s beat Davis 9-4 behind the pitching of Scott Gross, 49, and backed Reggie Bunnell, 62, to a 13-11 win over Darder Stone Works. Gross took the loss to SAI before pitching the Ringers to an exciting 15-14 win over Darder’s in the losers’ bracket championship game. It was a contest which featured acrobatic catches and timely hitting.
Bunnell faced forty-something Ackermann in the first championship game, in which the Ringers jumped out to a 3-0 lead as Drew Boandel slammed a two-run homer in the first.
SAI’s “Old Guard” answered in the second, with Glenn Hermann’s two-out single followed by Brian Brustman’s run-scoring double.
Shawn Canfield’s single in the fourth scored designated hitter Justin Collins, who had doubled, to put the Ringers up 4-1.
In the bottom of the frame Andrew Yager led off with a triple and trotted home on Corey Van Keuren’s fly to left.
Down 7-2 in the bottom of the sixth, SAI put on a power show – Andrew Yager doubled, and Van Keuren and Aaron Dinkel poked back-back homers to cut the margin to 7-5, which proved to be the final score.
Bunnell set the side down in order in the seventh to go all the way.
The heat finally got to an exhausted Ackermann, who took himself out after one inning of the second championship game. By then he had been reached for two runs, and his replacement, Van Keuren, was tagged for two more as the Ringers took a 4-0 lead in support of Gross.
Van Keuren helped his cause with a solo homer in the second and a three-run blast in the third to give SAI its first lead, 5-4.
When Logan Grishaber legged out a two-run homer in the top of the fourth, it gave SAI its biggest margin, 8-5.
But in the next frame Collins hit a towering grand slam homer that disappeared over the trees behind the left field foul line and put the Ringers back on top, 10-8. Three consecutive singles then produced the last run of the game, on Bill Nordenhold’s RBI.
Umpire David Slater declared that the sixth would be the last inning as twilight time descended. Gross gave up a single to Chris Hubert, but then got the dangerous Andrew Yager to ground into a 6-4-3 double play. Van Keuren followed with a single, but was stranded there when Boandel made a diving catch on a liner by Dinkel to center field.
In the Ringers’ dugout afterward George Muller reminded his teammates that they had won with a pair of ancient arms that added up to over a century.
Then he pointed to sixty-something Ron Canfield and joshed, “And if we had used this guy it would have put us over 200 years!”
For Canfield, who splits his time between Florida and Damascus, PA, it was another in a long line of triumphs. But he is not fully retired, still getting mound duties on occasion for his co-ed team.