OTTAWA – Two more Baseball Canada National Championship tournaments got underway today and one tournament’s playoff picture is becoming more jammed packed.
The Junior Championship started off in Charlottetown, PEI with an exciting game to kickoff the tournament as New Brunswick would come back from a 4-0 deficit to win it in the bottom of the seventh inning by a score of 5-4 over Saskatchewan.
After tying the game 4-4 in the fifth inning, New Brunswick executed a perfect seventh inning as David Crossman (Fredericton, NB) led off with a single, moved over to second on a sacrifice bunt from MacKenzie Washburn (Fredericton, NB) then driven in on a single from Ben Higgins (Moncton, NB) to win the game.
Ben Bradford (Kamloops, BC) went 3-for-5 with four RBI to lead British Columbia over Prince Edward Island 11-0. In the rest of the day’s action, Québec defeated Nova Scotia 9-2, Québec 2 would go on to beat Manitoba 5-2 and the Manitoban team would not fair much better in their second game of the day, succumbing to Ontario by a score of 8-5.
The Bantam Boys Championship got started in Mascouche, Québec and David Jalbert (Repentigny, QC) got his team off on the right foot, pitching six innings and allowing only one run on two hits with a pair of walks, while striking out eight to lead Lanaudiere over Alberta 4-1.
Another outstanding pitching performance came from Michael Foster (Pickering, ON), who threw a complete game shutout, allowing only two hits and two walks and struck out an incredible 15 batters as Ontario would defeat Québec 2-0.
In other action, Daniel Peakman (Victoria, BC) went 4-for-5 with four RBI as British Columbia would rout New Brunswick 14-3. Saskatchewan would go 2-0 on the day, beating Newfoundland & Labrador 4-2 and then drubbing Alberta 12-5. Ontario would also go 2-0 with an 8-4 win over Prince Edward Island and Lanaudiere would do the same with a 5-1 win over New Brunswick. Québec would make easy work of Manitoba, winning 11-0 and it would be a similar story for Nova Scotia who topped Prince Edward Island 10-0.
On the second day of the Baseball Canada Cup, after everyone in pool A finished the first day 1-1, two teams jumped in the dirver’s seat while the other two will a little climbing to do to capture a medal round spot.
Saskatchewan would hold on to beat British Columbia 3-2, while Travis Bondy (Windsor, ON) and Jasvir Rakkar (Brampton, ON) combined to throw a one-hit shutout to lead Ontario to a 6-0 win over Québec.
In other action, it was a pitcher’s duel between Aaron Noel (Miramichi, NB) and Alex Abbott (Charlottetown, PEI) as both would pitch the complete game and New Brunswick would blank Prince Edward Island 1-0.
New Brunswick would be involved in another barn burner as Robert Gallant (Miramichi, NB) would hit a RBI double in the top of the ninth to edge out Manitoba 5-4.
However, Manitoba would come back to win in a slugfest and outlast Nova Scotia 14-9. Jean-Guy Bilodeau (Winnipeg, MB) would drive in four runs in this matchup.
Alberta would improve to 3-0 in the tournament with a pair of wins today, first against Newfoundland & Labrador 14-0 and then over Prince Edward Island 5-3. For Newfoundland, it did not get much better as they would be crushed by Nova Scotia 10-0 to complete the day’s action.
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