The North Shore Twins bantam team – the youngest fielded by the elite youth baseball club based out of North Vancouver’s Parkgate Park – proved their worth by winning the 15U AAA Western Canadian Baseball Championships played Aug. 12-14 in Spruce Grove, Alta.
The Twins went 2-1 in pool play before knocking off their B.C. rivals, the White Rock Tritons, 12-2 in the semifinals. That set up a championship matchup against the previously undefeated Okotoks Black Dawgs, a pitching duel that was scoreless until the final inning, the seventh.
In the top of the seventh Jackson Flemons got on base with a single and advanced to second following an Okotoks error. Gareth Wintjes then ripped a two-out single to score Flemons, making it 1-0. The Dawgs rallied in the bottom of the inning, getting a runner to third base with two outs, but a strikeout ended the game and gave the Twins the win.
“The adage in baseball about quality pitching, sound defence and timely hitting once again proved to be true,” Twins general manager Dave Speers stated in a release. “It was a special year for the bantam Twins team as they likely fielded one of the youngest bantam AAA teams in the province with 11 Grade 8 players and five Grade 9 players.”
The win capped off an impressive year for the entire Twins organization. The senior team, coming off a B.C. Premier Baseball League title in 2015, finished second in regular season play in 2016 and advanced to the final four championship tournament.
The junior Twins won four straight playoff games to earn the provincial title at the 2016 B.C. Junior Premier Baseball League championship tournament.
