Creemore surrenders championship title to Sudbury
On Sept. 3, the Creemore 11U baseball team travelled to Sudbury to compete in Baseball Ontario’s provincial championship tournament. Game 1 of the tournament was the first of a few wild contests the team would have. Creemore pulled out a 6-5 victory over the West Mountain Cougars in a game that saw five lead changes including a two run seventh inning led by singles from Tait Broad and Logan Senay and a two-out, two-run game winning single by Evan Wells.
The second tilt was another nail-biter that saw Creemore score five runs in the last two innings to come back and beat the Komoka River Cats 5-4. Great starting pitching by Ryan Keba and a save by Keenan Reynolds secured the team a spot in the semi-final game on Sunday.
The Milton Mets were up next for these comeback kids and once again, after being down early, the boys scored six runs in the final two innings to pick up an 8-6 victory and secured the number one seed for the semi-final round. Cooper Duits would lead the offensive attack scoring two runs with two RBI.
The semi-final game was a re-match with the Komoka River Cats. Down 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh and facing an end to their season, Creemore pushed across one run to tie the game but let a chance for victory slip away when they left the bases loaded. It was time for their first extra inning game of the year. Thomas Weldon shut down the River Cats in the top of the eighth to set the stage for another walk-off win. After scoring the game tying run earlier in the game, Hayden Goodfellow-Oster would once again come through and score the game winning run on a single by Ben Clouthier. The bench and fans erupted as Hayden crossed home plate and sent the team to the Ontario championship game.
The championship game would be a meeting between the two best teams in the tournament: Creemore and the Sudbury Shamrocks. Sudbury went into the final game with a 12-1 record with their only loss coming to Creemore in mid-August. After four tumultuous comeback wins, little did the fans know that the wildest game of the weekend was yet to come. Brayden Foulds got the team off to a fast start when he tripled and scored in the first inning. Sudbury’s offence would fight back however, and it looked bad for the team when once again they faced elimination down 10-7 going into the top of the seventh. This team would not give up and scored four runs to take the lead. With two out in the bottom of the seventh and a runner on second base Creemore was one out away from becoming provincial champions, but the Shamrocks scored the runner with a triple to left field. Now facing elimination with a runner on third base, Reece Fuller induced a ground ball to end the inning and force another extra inning game. Creemore was unable to score in the top of the eighth and with two outs in the bottom of the frame, Sudbury would score to win the championship.
The team was missing hard-hitting Ty Hamilton who had suffered an ankle fracture mid-season. Congratulations to the players for a fantastic season and the coaching staff of Sparky Duits, Scott Fuller and Rob Senay.
Tryouts for next year’s 11U team for players born in 2011 or 2012 will be held at Dupuis Field in Gowan Park on Sept. 12 at 10 a.m., Sept. 16 at 6 p.m. and Sept. 18 at 10 a.m. For more information, enquiries can be sent to creemoreminorbaseball@gmail.com.
