Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
A fourth-place finish at the OASA Eliminations in McNab/Braeside was enough to qualify the Spud’s Restaurant Under-16 Napanee Express for the national fast pitch championship, which will take place Aug. 1-5 in Innerkip, Ont.
Napanee went 3-2 on the weekend, falling 1-0 to Innerkip in the fourth place game to end their weekend but not before they secured the fourth and final Ontario seed into next month’s eliminations.
“That’s what we were hoping for,” Express manager Chris Boutilier said of finishing at least fourth. “We’re always hoping for a berth at Nationals.”
Napanee opened the tournament with an 8-1 win over Osgoode followed by an 8-1 win over Wellesley.
They suffered their first loss against Tavistock 6-5 which put them in a must win situation for their next game. They responded in a big way as the offense paced them to a 14-8 win over Dutton to officially clinch the fourth spot.
They had a chance to play for a medal but lost the tightly contested 1-0 game to Innerkip, who went on the win bronze. Tavistock earned gold while Shallow Lake captured silver.
“It was only a one run loss to Innerkip and we only lost by one to Tavistock who ended up winning it all,” said Boutillier. “We were actually up on them 3-1 to start but they went up 5-3 and we just couldn’t finish it off.”
They’ll have a couple more opportunities against their provincial counterparts over the next couple of weeks, first at provincials in Cobourg the weekend of July 21-22.
Then the stakes will be raised at Nationals the first week of August.
The team is made up of Nic McGrayne, Brock Fencott, Connor Brooks, Rob Barker, Jacob Martin, Jacob Boutilier, Maddy Cronkwright, Connor Birdsell, Kody McLaughlin, Carter Hillier, Dawson Colazio and Zach Harry. They called up Gavin Brooks, Bryson Gilpin and Aiden Reddick from the peewee club to help solidify their roster for eliminations.