Game 7 needed in Strother Cup final
The Strother Cup Final of the North Dufferin Baseball League had the New Lowell Knights and Bolton Brewers trading wins again. Game 5 went to the Brewers 2-1 and Game 6 was won by the Knights 10-0.
Game 7 was supposed to be played on Sunday, but the game was postponed due to rain. The final game of the best of seven series will now be played Saturday, Sept. 24 in New Lowell at 1 p.m.
Outstanding pitching performances kept Game 5 on Wednesday night a close affair. The game, which was the only nighttime contest under the lights at Bolton’s North Hill Park in the series, ended with a 2-1 win for the home team.
It wasn’t until the fourth inning when a run was scored in the game when the Knights plated a lone run after moving Tanner Zeggil into scoring position at third on a sacrifice bunt by Sid Beelen and then scoring on a sacrifice fly to centrefield from Sean Connor.
In the fifth frame Bolton took the lead when Carson Burns scored on a sacrifice fly to centre from the bat of Greg Keenan and Drew Volkey hit a triple which scored Amin Juorez.
New Lowell had runners on base in the fifth and sixth innings but were unable to capitalize.
New Lowell was limited to four hits, two for Zeggil, and one each for Brett Elliott and Connor.
Bolton had five hits with a triple from Volkey, two doubles from Burns, and a single from John Hutchinson and Juorez.
Trent Barwick went the full seven innings on the bump for the Brewers, giving up one run on four hits, walking two and striking out two Knights. Jesse McIntyre started on the mound for New Lowell, pitching four and one-third of the game. He gave up two runs on three hits, walked one, and hit one batter.
Jake Nicholson entered in the fifth inning to make two outs and pitched the sixth inning with two hits against. On Saturday, Game 6 ended with a 10-0 win for the Knights after the mercy rule went into effect in the fifth inning.
New Lowell scored early in the game with three runs on a home run from Beelen in the first inning. The Knights added one more in the inning then four more in the third before ending the game with two runs crossing the plate on a Connor single in the bottom of the fifth.
Bolton was limited to five hits in the game from Stephen Warden, Chris Fafalios, Keenan, Burns and Juorez.
New Lowell blasted the ball with 12 hits, including Beelen’s home run and single. Steve Bowman hit two doubles, Chris Rettie had a double and single, Connor and Elliott singled twice and Zeggil and Chris Greer each singled.
Steve Baldry was on the mound for the Knights and gave up five hits, walked one, and struck one out through his five innings of work.
Bolton started Nick Hodgson who pitched two and one-thirds of the game, giving up eight runs on eight hits.
Nick Pettinaro was called in for relief and gave up two runs, while walking two.
In what has been a back and forth series, the final game on Saturday will crown one of the teams as the 2022 champions.
