By Dan Estey

The Sarnia Braves captured the senior elimination championship Monday evening in Windsor. The win, the team’s third ever provincial crown and first title since 1994, books a ticket to the Canadian championships which will be held in Miramichi, N.B. on Aug. 22-25.

The Braves had a tough run this year as they beat some of the best teams in the province to enter Monday. They led off their tournament with a 7-4 win over the Etobicoke Rangers which gave them a bye into the third round on Saturday morning. They then defeated the host Windsor Stars 5-3 and league mates the Strathroy Royals 7-6 on Saturday to remain undefeated.

Sarnia then defeated the Thornhill Reds by a score of 7-4 on Sunday to move to 4-0 on the tournament and followed that up with a 6-1 win over the Brampton Royals in the “Final 5” to advance to Monday undefeated and with a bye through Round 7.

In Game 1, the Thornhill Reds rode the arm of Chadwick Cameron as he held down a strong Stars team defeating them 1-0. This set-up the final between Thornhill and Sarnia with the Braves needing to be defeated twice. In Game 1, Sarnia added two runs late to go head 3-2 heading to the bottom of the seventh.

After a great six innings from Wade Babula, Mike Damchuk entered to try and nail down the save. The Reds loaded the bases though and a clutch two-out hit from Thornhill OF Dan Apostoli pushed across two runs and giving Sarnia their first loss of the tournament 4-3.

In the final of all finals, it was an absolute pitchers duel as Damchuk returned to the mound while Mack Major drew the starting nod for Thornhill. Both pitchers were brilliant through six innings as neither allowed a run with Damchuk scattering four Reds hits while Major had faced one over the minimum.

Damchuk shut down the Reds in the seventh and then the Braves got something rolling as they used a hit and an error to get a couple of runners on base. The runners advanced to second and third with one out. Thornhill then intentionally walked the bases loaded and got Vince Caschera to ground out and cut the run down at the plate.

Keegan Brandon was the next batter and on the first pitch that he saw the pitch handcuffed the catcher and the runner scored when the ball squirted to the backstop giving Sarnia a 1-0 walk-off win and the Ontario title.

James Grant coached Sarnia to its championship and now they represent Ontario at the Canadians.

Meanwhile on other diamonds ...

At St. Thomas, Cambridge edged the Brampton Royals 6-5 to win the 13U.

At historic Kinsmen Stadium, the Windsor Selects edged the Oshawa Legionairres 7-5 to take the 21U title.

In Burlington, the Etobicoke Rangers won it all and in a lopsided margin, beating Stouffville 16-3 to take the 18U.

At Clarkson Park in Mississauga Southwest, the Whitby Chiefs beat Windsor Riverside 8-2 to win the 15U.