Men’s Baseball Win Twice at OCAA’s and Play for Gold

Oshawa, ON – The St. Clair College Men's Baseball team have advanced to the OCAA Provincial Championship gold medal game on Saturday after a pair of wins in Oshawa Friday.  The top seeded Saints opened their tournament with a 5-4 win over host Durham College in the afternoon and then topped Humber College (Etobicoke) 7-5 in a marathon contest that nearly flipped the calendar date. 

In the afternoon win St. Clair went ahead 2-0 early but then fell behind 3-2 in the 3^rd inning.  The Saints responded with three runs in their bottom half and gave up a single in the 5^th then held on down the stretch.  St. Clair's pitcher Jacob Rajsigl (Windsor, ON) worked 2.2 innings in relief for the win with Enoc Watts (Panama City, Panama) and Patrick Kibble (Windsor, ON) each contributing two hits.

In the Humber win St. Clair was able to capitalize on 12 free passes from their rivals in a test of stamina where 19 combined walks were handed out.  The Saints jumped ahead 6-0 by scoring two runs in each of the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th innings.  Humber pushed two runs across in the 5^th before the Saints got one back in their half.  St. Clair did allow three runs in the 6^th to make it interesting in the late stages, but Austin Oulds (Chatham, ON) managed to close out the final two innings to put the Saints into the championship final. 

Hunter Appleyard (LaSalle, ON) led St. Clair offensively with two hits including a double and two RBI's.  Starter Brock Whitson (Chatham, ON) pitched his way to the win on the mound with 4.1 IP giving up an earned run on two hits with just one strikeout. 

St. Clair awaits the winner of the Saturday morning bronze medal game between Humber and Seneca. The championship will be decided at 1:00pm Saturday afternoon in the double knockout format so the Saints will have to be beaten twice on Saturday to play themselves out of their 6^th OCAA Championship.