LONDON, Ont. – It didn’t look good on paper for the Guelph Gryphons heading into Saturday, as the club took its winless record (0-4) to London to face the first-place Western Mustangs in OUA baseball action.

But the visitors defied all the early-season odds, taking both ends of a doubleheader, 4-2 and 10-6, over the Mustangs at Labatt Park to knock their opponents out of the top spot and get themselves back on the right track in the OUA standings.

Pitching was the story of the day for the Gryphons, who received a pair of strong outings from starters Colin Calvert and Adam Reynolds.

“Two solid pitchers,” noted Western manager Mike Lumley following the doubleheader. “Both pitchers today were as solid as they come in this league.”

Calvert took the hill in Game 1 and allowed just two runs – one earned – while scattering nine hits in a complete-game, seven-inning effort for the win. The right-hander notched just one strikeout in the contest, but managed to get big outs when he needed them – he held the Mustangs to a .143 mark (2-for-14) with runners in scoring position.

Adam Paish took the loss for Western – his first of the season. The right-hander allowed four runs on eight hits in 6.0 innings of work, walking a pair and striking out six in the process. Things got off to a rough start for Paish, who gave up a leadoff double to Guelph centre fielder Marc Mongillo. Both Mongillo and Rich Horne came in to score on a single by first baseman Craig Howse that gave the Gryphons an early 2-0 lead.

“He was okay,” Lumley said of Paish. “From the third inning on, he pitched great. But he didn’t come out of the gate like that. And he definitely needs to come out dominant. If he comes out of the gates strong, he dominates the game.”

That was more evident in Paish’s first start of the year against the University of Toronto. In that outing, the young hurler held the Varsity Blues to one run on just two hits over six innings for the win. In this game, Lumley felt that Paish was perhaps trying to be a little too fine.

“He was throwing around the plate instead of to the plate,” the veteran manager said. “And when he’s behind … hitters get a lot more comfortable when they know you’re behind the eight-ball all the time. He just has to pound the zone a little harder instead of picking corners all the time.”

If the Mustangs had their hands full with Calvert in Game 1, things didn’t get any easier in the second game of the doubleheader against the veteran Reynolds, who is regarded as one of the most talented pitchers in the league.

Reynolds certainly lived up to his billing in the first two frames, as the hard-throwing righty struck out the first six Western batters he faced before giving up a base hit to Andrew Thomson to open the third inning.
The Mustangs again dug themselves into an early hole in Game 2, as Brendan Higgins drove in a pair with a single and scored on Robert Marsigilo’s RBI triple in the first off Western starter Andrew Bergman. That put the Gryphons out front 3-0.

Uncharacteristically, the Mustangs committed five errors in the contest. Three of those came in the fifth inning and led to a trio of unearned runs to give Guelph a 6-1 advantage.

However, the home side fought their way back in the game against Reynolds, plating four runs of their own in the bottom half of the fifth. Following base hits by Andrew Thomson and Jeung Kim, No. 9 hitter Shawn Robinson drove in two with a bases loaded single to left. Two more runs came in to score when Andrew Salmon reached on an error by the Guelph shortstop that closed the gap to 6-5.

“Sometimes you have to wait guys out,” said Lumley who was pleased with the efforts of his offense against Reynolds. “He ran out of gas a little bit. We started figuring it out. We don’t see guys throwing 91 [miles per hour] all the time. It took us three innings to get the timing down and figure him out.”

But as quickly as Western brought themselves back in the game, the Gryphons immediately restored their lead to 10-5 by scoring four runs in the top of the sixth.

The Mustangs tried to mount another comeback in the final two innings, but couldn’t put together key hits with runners in scoring position. And that’s a trend that veteran Bruce Craine and his teammates know they need to reverse if they want to compete for an OUA championship in 2009.

“We were hitting the ball hard – sometimes right at guys. But we just have to cash in those runners … guys on third with less than two out,” Craine said. “We’re hitting the ball, and that’s a good sign. But we have to start hitting at the right time.”

Overall, Craine was understandably disappointed with Saturday’s outcome, but he was quick to credit the opposition.

“You have to hand it to them. I don’t want to say we took them lightly, but definitely they came out and played hard and got two outstanding pitching performances,” he said. “They hit the ball around, and they’re not a team that I think is going to be at the bottom for too long. They were looking pretty strong. You have to tip your cap to them.”

At 4-3 and in second place in the standings, the Mustangs now must regroup quickly to get things going in the right direction once again.

“We kind of look at this as a speed bump,” said Craine. “It would have been nice to get two [wins] and establish ourselves at the top of the standings with some authority today. But we didn’t. It’s over now and we can’t dwell on it because going into Brock tomorrow is not going to be easy. But we’re looking forward to it. It’s going to be a good chance for us to redeem ourselves and end the weekend the way we want to.”

For his part, Lumley thinks Sunday’s Brock contest could mark the turning point for his squad – either good or bad. It’s certainly the most important game of the young season for the Mustangs, and Lumley wasn’t mincing words on Saturday.

“It’s going to be a fight or flight,” Lumley said. “We’re either going to go hard at it and give it all we can. Or we’re going to put our tail between our legs, and the season could be over … tomorrow. It depends how they come out and play tomorrow. That’s how it could possibly be.”

The Mustangs will travel to St. Catharines tomorrow, Sunday, Sept. 13 for a single nine-inning contest against the Brock Badgers at Community Park. First pitch is set for 2:00 p.m.