NEW GLASGOW –
The Stellarton Albions are heading to the U15 baseball Atlantics.
Cameron Young tossed a complete-game three hitter and had three hits at the plate to lead the Albions to a 4-2 win over the Bridgewater Bulldogs in the provincial championship game on Aug. 18.
In game played at Sample Field in Stellarton, RBI hits from Riley Farrell, Blaise MacDonald and Alex Cathcard keyed a three-run uprising in the second inning and Young took it from there, striking out 11 Bulldog hitters in a dominating performance.
“We got contributions from the bottom of the order, and that was huge,” Albions coach Erik Fraser said of the three runs his team scored in the second. Stellarton finished with a perfect 5-0 record over the weekend.
The Bulldogs had gotten to the title game by upsetting the Clark’s Harbour Foggies, who until the Sunday semifinal had lost only one game all season
Down three runs in the seventh and final inning, the Bulldogs scored four runs to stun Clark’s Harbour with an 8-7 win.
The other semifinal pitted the Albion against New Glasgow Sullivan Fuels, where Lucas Canning of the Albions and New Glasgow’s Lane Lochead matched up in an old-fashioned pitching duel.
In Stellarton’s 3-0 win, Canning threw a complete-game shutout and struck out eight hitters, while Lochead also fanned eight batters, in five and two-thirds innings.
“It was the game of the weekend, by far,” Fraser said. “It could have gone either way – Lane was outstanding, too.”
The Albions will head to Newfoundland and Labrador in mid-September for the Atlantic championship tournament, which will take place in Conception Bay North.
“Our pitching was great for us,” Fraser said of provincials.
“They were efficient (and) there was a lot of pressure, especially in the New Glasgow game. There was a lot of people in the stands, a lot of eyes on us. There were at least 500 people there, I’d say. I mean, we ran out of 50/50 tickets.”
NOTES:
• Albions’ catcher Joseph Mason was named tournament MVP – he smashed three home runs, drove in 10 runs and scored seven times.
• In a Saturday afternoon round-robin game, Mason’s extra-inning grand slam homer gave Stellarton a 14-10 win over Bridgewater.
• That game ended like it began for the Albions: leadoff hitter Andrew Fraser swung at the first pitch he saw and parked it over the right field fence, staking his team to an early lead.
• The Albions homered eight times in their five games.
