Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Napanee’s U19 Express swept the Tavistock Athletics in two games to clinch gold at the OASA provincials held in Drumbo this weekend.
That gave the Express a clean sweep for the season, winning gold at eliminations, Eastern Canadians and now provincials.
Napanee defeated New Hamburg 14-7 early on Sunday morning to advance to the finals, where they’d have to beat Tavistock twice in order to take gold-the Athletics could win the championship with just one victory. Earlier in the tournament the A’s had beaten the Express 9-2.
Express coach Cory Brooks handed the ball to Lachlan Stover to start the first championship game.
“At the start of the year he wasn’t even pitching,” Brooks said of Stover. “He had pitched in the past but he kind of gave it up and taken on a role with us as an infielder, outfielder and a very good hitter. He went five innings with Tavy (Tavistock) and kept it real close.”
He left the game trailing 3-2 but the Express rallied to tie and push the game to extra innings. Napanee scored a pair in the eight to take a 5-3 lead and made those runs stand in thrilling fashion as Ty Branchaud threw a strike from left field to nail an Athletics runner trying to score for the final out of the game.
Napanee had little time to celebrate, as they quickly had to get ready for a winner-take-all final just a few minutes after the first game. They turned to ace Connor Brooks and as usual, he delivered.
“(Connor) didn’t even second-guess, he said he wanted the ball,” said Brooks. “They got maybe three hits and it was the best he’d thrown that weekend in the final.”
Napanee went on to blank the Athletics 4-0 and clinch the provincial title.
“Our team is very young, most of the teams we play like Tavy, they’ve got an older team, I think the majority of them are third year guys,” said Brooks. “That’s a big part of the game to have chemistry and keeping it fun on our bench and I think that’s a big thing that we try to do. The Elims or Fredericton (for Eastern Canadians) to now, we have a lot of fun on and off the field. The chemistry with these guys, it’s really unbelievable. The ball takes care of itself, we have good pitching, we have good defense and our batters are very good. This weekend it was about the whole team coming together and everybody playing and the right things going right for us.”
Sunday’s win wrapped up a season that saw the Express cram about seven weeks of ball into four weekends following a delayed start to the season. The entire team is eligible to return next year at the U20 level, as they’ll look to defend their three gold medals.