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Annual Peters family ball tournament draws a dozen teams to Hope ball diamonds

Recently upgraded field at the Schkam reserve the backdrop for this year’s event
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Mateo Andrews (Roddy’s nephew) leans into a pitch, on his way to an inside-the-park homer. (Barry Stewart/ The Standard)

Barry Stewart

Hope Standard

The recently upgraded field at the Schkam reserve on Ross Road made an appropriate venue for the finals of the annual Peters Family Memorial two-pitch tournament last weekend.

The field is now officially named the P.D. Peters Memorial Park, after the late Peter Dennis Peters, who was a grandfather of a number of the participants, including co-organizer, Monica Florence.

Florence said on Tuesday, “We hadn’t used the field for six years, maybe longer. We got funds to redo it last year. It was leveled and re-seeded — with a sprinkler system, too. It was all done last summer but it had to settle in.

“We got it done, along with our cultural education centre, that has washrooms,” she added.

Twelve teams took part, an improvement over the 10 and 11 of the previous two years. Action was split between the Ross Road diamond and Sixth Avenue’s diamond #1.

“We had two divisions,” explained Florence. “One was the Papa division and the other was the Maggie May, after P.D.’s wife, my grandma. It wasn’t A or B… just two divisions that we drew out of a hat. They both had the same prize money.”

In the Papa division, a combined Chilliwack and Hope team, sponsored by Schxwowhamel Ventures took top place, followed by the mostly-Chilliwack-based W4L and the Chawathil Crushers.

FYD, a Seabird Island and Agassiz-based team were the best in the Maggie May grouping, followed by the Seabird-Agassiz Bench Warmers and the Chawathil Meles.

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Roddy Andrews from Shxwowhamel scares up a mighty swing. (Barry Stewart/ The Standard)
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Ryan Peters from Shxwowhamel fields a fly ball, keeping the game close. (Barry Stewart/ The Standard)
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Vinny Chapman of Chilliwack serves up a sweet pitch, in the opening game, Friday night at Sixth Avenue Park. All games were played in the 2-pitch format, where teams supply their own pitchers and a batter has only two chances to make a hit. A team goes through a 10-player line-up before heading to the field. (Barry Stewart/ The Standard)