The Saltcoats Lakers and Weyburn Beavers didn’t seem to want the gold medal final to end in the 2019 13U Tier 6 Baseball Provincial Championship Tier 6.
The Beavers were leading the game 10-9 at Saltcoats Regional Park this afternoon, (Sunday), after three innings.
The two sides were both three-up, and three-down in the fourth.
In the fifth, Weyburn plated another run to lead 11-9.
But the Lakers, who came from behind in three of four games leading up to the final, scored two in the home half of the fifth to tie the game 11-11.
The sixth, and scheduled final inning in U13 ball was scoreless, sending the gold medal game to extra innings.
The seventh was scoreless.
The eighth was scoreless.
The top of the ninth was scoreless.
In the bottom of the ninth Nikki Devins got on and made her way to third base, where Liam Baron could drive her in for the game-winning run-batted-in.
Asked what he initially felt when his hit scored the run, Baron simply replied. “Wow!”
“That’s about all I thought – just Wow?”
Baron said on the crack of the bat he wasn’t sure the ball was going to get though the Beaver defence.
“They almost had it,” he said.
But it was a hit, and the Lakers were winners.
“It was just yesterday I was having a tough time believing we were here,” said the 13-year-old Baron, adding winning provincials would take some time to digest.
“I think it will take a little while to sink in.”
Lakers coach Mike Farquharson termed the feeling of the win simply as “shock!”
Farquharson said the team has come a long way over the course of the season.
“Who would have believed at the start of the season what this motley crew could have pulled off,” he said. “It’s been an amazing season -- very cool.”
The win, said Farquharson is big for note just the players, but the community.
“This will echo throughout the community for quite some time,” he said.
