The Bloordale Major Pee Wee Select team capped off a fantastic season sweeping the EBA championships on Aug 8-10. Going into the weekend Bloordale had a perfect record during regular season play.
“The boys knew that every team we played wanted to be the ones to beat us,” says Head Coach Mike Woolcock. “But our plan was simple; play the baseball we had all year and we were confident we would come out on top.”
On their way to the championship the team had to defeat regular season finishers second place Annette, third place Toronto Playgrounds 1 and, fourth place Martingrove. There were no easy games but Bloordale came ready to play each game with solid defense and timely offense.
Coming into the championship game undefeated gave Bloordale the advantage but facing the strong team from Annette anything was possible. The score went back and forth for three innings until the Bloordale bats finally broke lose posting 15 runs in the top of the forth. Shutting out Annette in the bottom of the inning gave Bloordale a hard earned championship.
This team is justifiably proud of their accomplishments this year. Their record stands at 29 wins; 2 losses. They finished the season champions of the Southwest London tournament, finalists in the Mississauga Majors tournament and now EBA champions.
Early in the season our offense overpowered most teams but as the season progressed and, particularly in tournament play, defense played an ever important role in the wins. With strong pitching and, rock solid defense in both infield and outfield the team often simply wore down the competition averaging 13 runs per game while only giving up 4 runs per game.
The EBA playoffs were no exception. The top 4 teams in this loop were all strong offensive teams which meant the defense had a large role in supporting their pitchers. While it’s impossible for any defense to be perfect over the course of five games, this team came pretty close. If an outfielder was able to get to a ball a catch was made and if an infielder got a glove on the ball someone was going to be out.
The team is now preparing for the provincial championships in Richmond Hill on Labour Day weekend.