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Aklak Air repeats as slo-pitch champs
Nail-biter end to season as Falcons lose to Rocky's, then win the tiebreaker

Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, August 29, 2013

INUVIK
A tidal wave of blue washed over the Inuvik Slo-pitch Association playoffs over the Aug. 24-25 weekend.

NNSL photo/graphic

Players on the Aklak Air Falcons slo-pitch team celebrate after claiming their second straight title as the Inuvik Slo-pitch league finished its season Aug. 25. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

The Aklak Air team shook off a 20-3 drubbing at the hands of the Rocky's team to claim its second-straight title with a hard-fought and suspenseful 12-9 win over the same team Aug. 25.

Aklak came up surprisingly flat in what could have been the season-ending game. That one-sided loss at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 25 sent both the Falcons and the Rockys into a tiebreaker final immediately after.

From the start of the tiebreaker final, the Aklak Falcons had the game in their grasp, rolling out to a lead they never relinquished.

The Rockys pulled to within one run in the fifth and sixth innings, but couldn't keep the Falcons off the score sheet in the seventh inning. Rockys pitcher Chelsea Larocque couldn't find her rhythm and walked a series of batters, which eventually brought in three runs.

Along with Larocque, the Rockys featured two more members of the Benchwarmers, the women's territorial champions, but their presence wasn't a deciding factor in the two-game series.

Larocque was playing with a painful bruise on her thigh after being on the receiving end of a line drive, but continued to play.

Falcons manager Fraser Pingo said it was an emotional victory for the team.

"I'm proud of my team right now," he said. "This is what happens when you have a team that stick together, that knows each other.

"We played this team in the finals last year with the exact same results," Pingo added. "They had to beat us twice, because we finished at the top."

Last year, the Rockys took the first game of the double-header final, with Aklak roaring back to win in the second.

During the 20-3 loss in the first game, Pingo said the team was "flat."

"We were quiet and had no spunk in us," he said. "We play best when we're noisy."

The Falcons finished the top round of the double-round elimination with no defeats, leaving the Rockys to scratch their way back to the final. Each team had played multiple games on Aug. 25.

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