Midland Twins claim NDBL junior baseball title

The Midland Twins went undefeated in the North Dufferin Baseball League’s junior division championship tournament in Midland on the weekend to take home the title after an 8-3 win over Caledon.
Midland entered the tournament finishing fourth in regular season play meeting the first seed Caledon Nationals in game one. Midland won the contest 12-5 moving on to face the second place team Georgina Bulldogs where they again won with a closer 14-12 score. The two wins advanced the team to the championship.
In other tournament action, third place Creemore Padres faced Georgina in the first round, with Georgina winning 11-9. Creemore then met Caledon in a do-or-die game and were knocked out scoring one run to Caledon’s eight.
Georgina and Caledon met in the third round on Sunday morning with Caledon out-scoring Georgina 10-4 and setting the match up in the championship.
The championship game had the Twins up early scoring four runs in the first inning and two more in the second. Caledon plated two runs in the third and one more in the sixth. Midland scored twice in their half of the sixth to extend the lead.
Midland had 12 hits including three singles from Lucas Shepherd, two from Zac Helmer and Christian Browne. Lonnie Dunlop and Liam Thor doubled and both Kyle Weatherall and Kevin McQuinn hit a single and a home run.
Mark Sharples, Brayden Grech, Nathan Chan, and Logan Hart hit singles for Caledon. Mario Accardo and Reid Deibert both had two singles, and Cameron O’Neil doubled in the losing effort.
Chris Zanchetta was the starting pitcher for Caledon pitching one inning, giving up seven hits and six runs, and had one strike out.
Nick Fiorucci pitched the remaining five innings, giving up five hits, two runs, two walks, one hit batsman and struck out one batter.
Shepherd hurled all seven innings for Midland and allowed three runs on nine hits, walked one and fanned five batters.
League secretary and junior division convenor Scott Anderson congratulated Midland on the win and presented the Anderson Trophy to Shepherd in a post-game presentation (below).