The 14U AA Bloordale Rep team punctuated a dominating season by winning the Ontario Baseball Association (OBA) Provincial championship over the Labour Day weekend in Brantford. The tournament featured the 12 best AA teams from across the province. One of the team managers provided this summary of the championship weekend:
Friday night’s game against Mississauga South was a nail-biter, complete with a walk-off 5-4 win. Saturday started with optimism for a long-awaited match-up with the Tier 1 Guelph Royals, but that optimism quickly faded due to some uncharacteristic errors in the field and a silencing of our bats, resulting in a 10-0 blowout loss. Saturday night, facing elimination, the team went to battle against the Tier 1 Kitchener Panthers, prevailing 10-6. This set up a second match against the Guelph Royals, where our team had their revenge, beating Guelph 18-13. Bloordale then faced the undefeated Tier 1 Milton Mets, with all three regular catchers unavailable due to an injury in the prior game and exhausted pitching arms. But they took care of business, 16-6, punching their ticket to the finals on Monday.
The Championship game against Hamilton’s Tier 1 team was a tight 1-1 battle until the bottom of the 5th when our Bombers scored four runs to take the lead and added another run in the 6th. But tensions remained high to the end, with Hamilton scoring two runs in the 7th and loading the bases with the go-ahead run at the plate. Finally, the 3rd out was caught in dramatic fashion in shallow center field, sealing the victory.
The OBA championship capped off a great season:
- Overall season record 44-2
- Toronto Baseball Association (TBA) league play: 19-1
- Undefeated in 4 tournaments (Mississauga North, Barrie, Kitchener, Mississauga Southwest), with a rainout in the final game in Barrie
- TBA city champions: 5-0
- OBA Provincial champions 5-1
- Congratulations to the members of the 2024 14U AA Provincial champions:
Players: Ben Blazik, Henry Thomas, Cole Henderson, Adam Alsukhon, Jake Pachas, Adler Steiger, Karter Cochrane, Colin Paananen, Hudson Karn, Gabriel Panton, Lucas Russo, Jake Daw.
Coaches: Kevin Cochrane, Grant Henderson, Ben Panton, Shawn Karn.
Managers: Andrew Daw, Chris Mitchell.