By Nathan Kanter

Beavers confident after taking down league-leading Blue Jays

Jun 7, 2017 | 10:00 AM

Brennan Lampitt has played in the North Saskatchewan River Baseball League for 15 years.

That entire time, he’s been a North Battleford Beaver.

Following the Beavers 7-6 win over the previously undefeated Border City Blue Jays on Tuesday night, Lampitt expressed loads of optimism for this year.

“I’ve got a good feeling about this season, personally,” he said. “Everyone’s more hungry. Lots of guys I think see the dire need and want it. We’re just hungry. We want it more than maybe in the past so everyone’s digging deep.”

The Beavers began the year 0-1-1 thanks to an extra-innings loss to Standard Hill on opening night and then a tie with the Lloydminster Twins.

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But last Thursday they smacked Edam 13-2 and followed it up by taking down the 4-0 Blue Jays to improve to 2-1-1 on the year.

Lampitt may be an impactful grizzled veteran (and the longest serving Beaver on the team) but much of the credit for Tuesday’s win has to go to the young talent, particularly starting pitcher Quinton Cubbon.

Cubbon is in his first full season with the Beavers and pitched four full innings.

“Things are looking up. A lot of guys are thinking positively in the room,” Cubbon said on the team getting over the slow start. “Our pitching was a little bit off obviously [to start] and then there’s a few errors that we make out in the field. [We] just got the spider webs out of the way.”

“It’s awesome to have these young guys come up and help out us old boys,” Lampitt added. “It’s nice when they can go a good four or five [innings]. It helps us tremendously. We need more rest than ever.”

Cubbon said it’s helpful for him and the defence when the bats get going early, which was part of their game plan on Tuesday, and it worked.

“We kind of had a game plan to start the game off – we had to get on their pitcher early,” Cubbon said. “We kind of executed that – we went up 3-0. That ended up working out and we held them to one run for most of the game.”

Most of the game, but not all.

There was a slight scare when the Blue Jays scored five runs in one inning.

“[They] had us back on our heels and we just had to come back from that and shake it off and dig deep,” Lampitt said. “[The win] happened through true grit. Just not letting up.”

One of the things Lampitt has noticed over the years has been how competitive things have become across the entire NSRBL.

“Back then, us as the Beavers… we got lots of wins but I feel like the rest of the league has really come into their own and are really making us work hard for our victories nowadays,” Lampitt said. “It’s just faster. Everything is faster.”

And now there’s two North Battleford teams in the league, which means even more local competition.

Lampitt said when the idea was first brought up, some people were skeptical.

“Everyone was like ‘Geez, another team. Do we have enough players in this town?’ ” Lampitt said. “But now that we’ve played an exhibition game against them, we’ve seen them play and it’s a bunch of young guys, I think it’s awesome.

“I’m excited about it. I hope we have good games [against] one another and it brings more fans out, having that many more North Battleford guys in the stadium.”

On Wednesday night, the Beavers have a road game in Meadow Lake against their new division rival. The Sox are in first at the moment with a 4-2 record.

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11