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Medicine Hat News
Team Ontario must be angling for the
Baseball Canada Cup to come back to Medicine Hat every year,
because they can’t seem to lose here.
Ontario won Canada’s under-17
championship tournament for the third time in four years Sunday,
beating British Columbia 8-6 in a see-saw battle that had the
capacity crowd on edge right until the end.
After surviving a tough challenge from
eventual bronze medal winner New Brunswick earlier in the day,
Ontario had a response for every score B.C. put up, finally scoring
three in the bottom of the sixth, two on an Andrew Firth double,
and closer Brett Van Pelt struck out the side in the seventh.
Medicine Hat hosted the tournament in 2005
and 2006, and both times Ontario won. Multiple sources said Sunday
the tournament will return to the Gas City in 2010. The 2009
tournament will be played in Kindersley, Sask.
The host team from Alberta wound up with
its best record this decade at the Cup at 5-2, beating Saskatchewan
7-2 in the fifth-place game. Hometown products Mitch Frey and
Justin Lutz were both named to the tournament all-star team, which
will be narrowed down to Team Canada later this year.
New Brunswick, which had a 2-1 lead on
Ontario with two innings to play, fell 3-2 to the eventual
champions but rebounded for the province’s first-ever medal
at the event, winning bronze 13-8 over Québec.
For more on the tournament see Page A7 or
visit the tournament website at www.bccmedhat.com, where News
writers wrote stories on every game of the five-day
championship. |
