Listowel Bantams Complete Trifecta of Championships, News, Bantam, Baseball, 2017 (Listowel Minor Baseball)

This Team is part of the 2017 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Sep 05, 2017 | Pete Verbeek | 1409 views
Listowel Bantams Complete Trifecta of Championships
Over the last three weekends, the Listowel Bantam Baseball team employed their "make it to Championship Sunday" and "never lose an inning" strategies to capture the WOBA and ICBA League Championships and finished off their season with the OBA Bantam C Championship.

WOBA Championship – The team had a slow start on Friday night losing to Mitchell 9-5 but rebounded on Saturday to beat Kincardine #1 and St Mary’s Blue by scores of 13-1 and 6-1.  This got them 1st place in their pool and a matchup with St Mary’s Grey in the semifinal on Sunday morning.  The boys came ready to play and came away with a strong performance in a 13-2 victory.  This got them a rematch with St Mary’s Blue in the final.  The boys came out strong from start to finish which resulted in a 15-5 win and captured them the WOBA Championship.

WOBA Championship players – Bret Smith, Chet Hudson, Keegan Long, Zach Harrow, Caleb Claus, Nich Verbeek, Seth Reading, Brett Armstrong, Evan Veitch, Sam Town, Josh Jacklin, Ceryne Bierling and Boyd Kirkham.

ICBA Championship – Going into the ICBA league Championships the team wanted to continue their momentum over from the WOBA weekend and did just that on Thursday night with a 14-0 win over Waterloo.  That set up a matchup with the first place Cambridge Cubs on Saturday morning.  The boys played some sound technical baseball which landed them a 5-2 victory and a spot in the final on Sunday morning.  Cambridge made their way back to the final, setting up a rematch of the top two teams in the league.  Listowel again played some great baseball but Cambridge hung around throughout the game.  With Listowel clinging to a two run lead heading into the bottom of the 7th, Cambridge managed to score one but couldn’t complete their comeback as we got a groundout with the bases loaded to end the game, giving Listowel the 4-3 win and the ICBA Tier 2 Championship.

ICBA Championship players – Bret Smith, Chet Hudson, Keegan Long, Zach Harrow, Nich Verbeek, Lucas Baggio, Brett Armstrong, Sam Town, Josh Jacklin, Ceryne Bierling, Boyd Kirkham and Garrett Golley.

OBA Bantam C Championship - The team headed into the OBA Bantam C Championships in Port Dover labour day weekend on a terrific streak and kept it going for our Friday game.  Playing the hosts from Port Dover, the team came out scoring early and often, putting together a terrific 16-1 victory.  Saturday morning was a bit tougher test against Wyoming but the boys managed to put together a big middle inning of 5 runs resulting in a 11-3 victory and a spot in the undefeated game on Saturday afternoon.  This matchup against Belle River was a tight back and forth affair.  Belle River took an early 1-0 lead before the boys bounced back with 2 runs of their own on some timely hitting.  Belle River came back with a run to tie the game in the top of the sixth but the tie was short lived as Listowel would not have any of that and came right back with a four spot in the bottom of the 6th to regain the lead and then shut the door in the 7th to make the final 6-2.  Our Sunday morning matchup versus Amherstburg was a test on the players, coaches and fans nerves as this game was a lefty pitching duel from start to finish.  The Amherstburg pitcher and Listowel’s own Bret Smith when back and forth all game trading out for out with some great pitching and some timely defense.  Listowel did not get their first base-runner until the bottom of the 5th inning when Sam Town hit a single to right-center field.  However, the game remained scoreless entering the bottom of the 7th when pinch hitter Seth “Mr. Clutch” Reading came in and smacked a line-drive single to left field over the shortstop’s head.  After Seth gave way to a the reentered catcher Zach Harrow to run, leadoff hitter Keegan Long got on base and before we knew it we had 2nd and 3rd with nobody out.  Amherstburg then intentionally walked Nich Verbeek which set the stage for shortstop Josh Jacklin coming up with the bases loaded.  Josh hit a long line drive to the left fielder for an out but it allowed Zach to tag from 3rd and score the winning run when the throw was a bit offline.  The 1-0 victory meant a place in the final and another game against Belle River whom beat Wyoming in the other semifinal by a 11-9 score.  The final game was another tight affair with starter Nich Verbeek being spotted a 1-0 lead early in the game.  Belle River tied the game but the boys applied their never lose an inning strategy and scored 3 in the bottom half of the frame to take a 4-1 lead.  Belle River got one more back in the 5th to make it 4-2, but Sam Town came in and shut the door leaving a couple men on base.  Some good defense and great pitching by Sam allowed the boys to close the door for the final 2 innings leaving the final 4-2 and giving the boys the OBA Bantam C Championship they deserved.

OBA Championship player roster – Back row – Brett Long, Trevor Reading, Keegan Long, Brett Armstrong, Seth Reading,  Nich Verbeek, Sam Town, Lucas Baggio, Zach Harrow, Mike Smith, Pete Verbeek  Front row – Garrett Golley, Josh Jacklin, Ceryne Bierling, Bret Smith, Chet Hudson.

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