For the first time since the Green Sleeves squad back in the 1990s, a club team from the Molson St. John’s Senior Men’s Softball League will be competing in the International Softball Congress world championship Aug. 11-18 in Kitchener, Ont.
And the 3 Cheers Bud Light team will have help from far away, in the form of South African pitcher Tidima Kekana.
Kekana pitched for South Africa at the world softball championship last summer in Whitehorse, Yukon.
“He’ll pitch the bulk of the innings,” said Lee Cose, one of the players instrumental in getting the 3 Cheers squad together for the ICS tourney.
“Myself and Mike Noftall will pitch as well. But he led the tournament in innings pitched last year (in Whitehorse),” Cose said of Kekana.
“We looked for pitching help and international seemed to be the way to go because a lot of the domestic players are already spoken for by other teams. We looked around, looked at the world championship last year and Tidima’s name stood out.
“The wonders of the internet got this going.”
The ISC championship is for Canadian and United States-based teams, but quite a number of internationals dot team rosters.
For example, Australia’s Adam Folkard, one of the world’s best pitchers, throws for the Hill United Chiefs of Ohsweken, Ont.
Hill United also features Jason Hill and Shane Boland of St. John’s, and Brad Ezekiel of Harbour Main on the roster. The team is coach by John Hill of St. John’s.
The Chiefs won the 2017 ISC world men’s championship.
At least a dozen other players from the city’s senior men’s circuit are involved in the ISC tournament with other teams, based (on paper, at least) in cities and towns such as Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., Denmark, Wisc., Fargo, N.D. and Ohsweken.
“This gives some guys here in St. John’s, who could probably play on other teams as role players, an opportunity to show up at the ISC championship and do what we can do,” Cose said.
“We face the best players on a a regular basis in league play here at home.”
The 3 Cheers squad will be coached by Blair Setford of Ontario.
Members of the 3 Cheers team are Tidima Kekana, Lee Cose, Mike Noftall, Rylee Costello, Justin Gill, Fergus Griffiths, Eddie Hefferan, Shane Kelly, Mark Lewis, Dan Mullins, Chris Murphy, Jeremy O’Reilly and Stephen Strapp.
The roster does have plenty of big-game experience. Cose, Gill, O’Reilly, Griffiths, Lewis and Noftall have all played in the ISC tournament, and O’Reilly is in Canada’s 40-man national team pool.
Gill, Lewis and Noftall have suited up for Canada at the world junior championships, and Murphy, Gill, Lewis, O’Reilly and Strapp have all won awards at the national senior men’s championship.
In addition to that, Mullins has won a couple of national senior men’s championships, and is part of the St. John’s senior men’s league’s 300-hit club.
