The third annual Gup Memorial Men’s slo-pitch tournament served up a classic bracket brawl, and the SOP’s closed it out like closers, taking the final over the Traitors to snap a two-year hold on the trophy.
The weekend opened Friday night with the Traitors handling the Warriors, a tidy first win that looked like business as usual for the back-to-back champs. Saturday shuffled the order. The Grinders knocked off the Cousins, then the SOP’s clipped the Traitors to send the favourites to the long road. The bracket tightened. The Cousins bounced the Warriors to end their run, only to be bounced themselves by the Traitors in the next game.
By mid-afternoon the tournament had flipped. The clubs that split this season’s major hardware were out of the driver’s seat, and the SOP’s were finding barrels. They outplayed the Grinders to book the first ticket to the final. The Grinders dropped into a do-or-die against the Traitors and lost a tight one, pushing the Traitors through to a rematch with the SOP’s for the championship.
The final belonged to the SOP’s. They stayed patient at the dish, hit their cuts, and kept the ball in front of them when it mattered. The Traitors put runners on and threatened more than once, but the SOP’s answered every push with timely contact and clean defence, closing the door and pocketing the title.
It caps a strong late-season run for the SOP’s, coming just weeks after they lifted the B-division crown at the Telkwa BBQ tournament. Different diamond, same approach: put the ball in play, take the extra base when it is there, and make the routine outs look routine.
