The Villages Daily Sun

SUMMERFIELD — The four divisions of the Del Webb Sun ’N’ Fun Invitational Tournament played championship games at Spruce Creek Golf and Country Club on Friday.

Two of the games produced champions and in the other two, the losers’ bracket champions won to force an “if” game.

The two “if” games will be played at 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. today at Spruce Creek Golf and Country Club.

The most decisive victory in a championship game came when Lakes at Leesburg, the only No. 1 seed in any of the divisions to reach the final game, defeated Thermo Cool/Water Oak 12-2 to take Division V.

Lakes at Leesburg started strong. The top seed took a 3-0 lead after an inning.

Ron Welkley’s lead-off double and Will Harrison’s two-out single pushed the edge to 4-0 after two innings. Austin Wetherell had a two-out, two-run double in the third inning as the Lakes at Leesburg lead grew to 7-0.

Lakes at Leesburg helped itself by turning double plays in each of the first three innings.

“We had consistent defense all the way around,” said Lakes at Leesburg manager Jim Spaulding. “It’s somebody different doing it for us every game.”

Water Oak manager Jim Gardiner said the double plays stopped everything his team got started.

“We hit into too many double plays in the early innings,” Gardiner said. “That killed us. Every time we got something started, we hit into a double play.”

After Water Oak got on the board in the top of the fifth inning to make the score 7-1, Lakes at Leesburg tacked on five more runs in the bottom half of the inning.

Mark Dehaas’ single drove in two of the runs in the rally.

Dehaas played a spectacular game from his short field position, making several diving stops.

“He plays that hard all of the time,” Spaulding said.

Wetherell had three hits to pace the winners.

Bob Ramsey, Jim Wallace and Rich Griffith all had three hits for Water Oak.

Water Oak 000 010 1 - 2 10 5

Lakes at Leesburg 313 050 x - 12 17 1

W: Chuck Boreman. L: Keith Mullen.

2B: LAL - John Abell 2, Ron Welkley. 3B: LAL - Austin Wetherell. RBIs: WO - Bruno Dominelli 1, Don Ward 1. LAL - Wetherell 4, Mark Dehaas 4, Dave Boram 2, Boreman 1, Jim Spaulding 1.

Division III

United Southern Bank/Royal Highlands defeated Armstrong Homes/Stonecrest 13-7 to take the Division III championship.

Royal Highlands entered the tournament as the No. 3 seed and Stonecrest was seeded eighth.

“This is unbelievable,” said winning manager Don Klaben. “All the teams in this division are tough.”

Royal Highlands took an early lead with three runs in the opening inning. Lee Fjeld had a double, and Tommy Viner, Larry Schultz and Ron Tardio had singles in the early rally.

Stonecrest came back with the game’s next seven runs to take the lead. Bob MaGill’s two-run single highlighted a five-run second inning, and Tom Vancleave’s run-scoring triple keyed a two-run third inning.

Royal Highlands came back with three runs in each of its next three at-bats, and winning pitcher Marv Chapman shut down Stonecrest the rest of the way to seal the victory.

“I’m disappointed we didn’t win the whole thing,” said Stonecrest manager Bob Hein. “We got in the losers’ bracket and had to play two games Wednesday and two games Thursday. I think we just ran out of gas, but we had fun.”

Fjeld had four hits, Schultz went 3-for-3, with a sacrifice, and Chapman and Rex Smith also each had three hits to lead Royal Highlands.

Vancleave and Chuck Emery both had a pair of hits for Stonecrest.

Stonecrest 052 000 0 - 7 11 3

Royal Highlands 303 331 x - 13 23 2

W: Marv Chapman. L: Tom Vancleave.

2B: RH - Lee Fjeld. 3B: SC - Vancleave. RH - Tommy Viner. RBIs: SC - Dave McGrath 2, Vancleave 1, Joe Safreed 1, Matt Gerdvil 1, Stan Smith 1, Bob MaGill 1. RH - Viner 2, Chapman 2, Larry Schultz 2, Mike Holzhausen 2, Charlie Sovern 1, Ron Tardio 1, Don Klaben 1.

Division II

Lake County Eagles 4273/Holiday Travel Resort, the No. 7 seed in the tournament, came out of the losers’ bracket and defeated fifth-seeded Urology of Florida/Spruce Creek 9-7 forcing an “if” game.

“We were in the losers’ bracket, but we have beaten the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 seeds already,” said winning manager Harold Brown. “We will have to beat the fifth seed again tomorrow.”

Holiday Travel scored a run in the opening inning on doubles by John Parkhurst and George Muller to take the early lead.

George Matthews cleared the fence for a two-run home run in the second inning to give Spruce Creek a one-run advantage.

The teams both scored one run in the third inning and three in the fourth, but Holiday Travel took a 9-6 lead with four runs in the fifth inning.

Robin McMullen drove in a pair of runs with a triple in the go-ahead rally.

Spruce Creek hurt itself with some faulty base running when one runner was tagged out after overrunning third base and another left third too early on a fly and was out on appeal.

“We blew it, is the simplest way to say it,” said Spruce Creek manager Ken Dickerson. “Running errors killed us, but they played excellent ball.”

Bob Schinnert and Yvon Tremblay both had three hits to lead Holiday Travel.

Mike Niebalksi had three hits and Mathews went 2-for-2, with a walk, for Spruce Creek.

Holiday Travel 101 340 0 - 9 19 1

Spruce Creek 021 300 1 - 7 16 1

W: Bob Richardson. L: Carmen DiCocco.

2B: HT - John Parkhurst, George Muller. 3B: HT- Robin McMullen. SC - Howie Bowman. HR: SC - George Matthews. RBIs: HT - McMullen 2, Jerry Spillett 2, Muller 1, Glen Leverson 1, Bob Shinnert 1, Larry Jankowski 1, Yvon Tremblay 1. SC - Bowman 3, Matthews 2, DiCocco 1, Rich Bonn 1.

Division IV

Kinetico Water/Royal Highlands came out of the losers’ bracket to defeat Highland Lakes Dental/Hawthorne 4-1 to force an “if” game. The two teams have now split a pair of games in the tournament.

Royal Highlands scored an unearned run in the third inning to take a 1-0 lead.

Steve Pierce socked a two-run inside-the-park home run in the fourth inning to push Royal Highlands’ lead to 3-0.

Both teams added one more run.

“My boys came together for me today,” said Royal Highlands manager Henry Kirchner. “I hope they do the same thing tomorrow. I wish we had played like this all season.”

Vern Lamm went 2-for-2, with a walk to lead Royal Highlands.

Chuck Moore, Jerry Milligan, Marty Boermeester and Gary Butler all had a pair of hits for Hawthorne.

“We didn’t hit well,” said Hawthorne manager Tom O’Heran.

Royal Highlands 010 201 0 - 4 10 1

Hawthorne 000 100 0 - 1 10 3

W: Joe Meers. L: Gary Butler.

2B: H - Marty Boermeester. 3B: RH - Steve Pierce. HR: RH- Pierce. RBIs: RH - Pierce 3, Frank Kozel 1. H - Butler.

Steve Day is a sportswriter for the Daily Sun. He may be reached at sports@thevillagesmedia.com.