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Giants done after first round loss to Clearview

August 16, 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

It was a quick end to an otherwise stellar season for the Orangeville Giants senior team.

The Giants lost their first round best-of-five North Dufferin Baseball League playoff series against the Clearview Orioles in a three game sweep that ended with a road game on Sunday, August 12.

It was the third year in a row the two teams have met in the first round of playoffs with both teams winning one year so this set things up for a good tie-breaker grudge match for 2018.

The Giants finished in fifth place in the 14 team senior division with a 14-9-3 record.

The Clearview team came to the playoff series as the number four seed with a 16-10 record for the regular season.

The series got underway on Wednesday, August 8, with Clearview as the home team and game taking place in New Lowell.

That first game ended with a narrow 3-1 loss for the Giants.

Game two took place at Princess of Wales Park in Orangeville on Saturday, August 11.

After getting up by two runs in the second inning, the Orioles kept the bats moving to win the game 13-6 and put all the pressure on the Giants to pull off a win in game three and keep the series alive.

“It was 3-1. They had guys on base, we had guys on base. We just couldn’t get those timely hits,” summed up coach Nathan Drury of the first game in the series. “There was lots of good defence on both ends. There weren’t many errors. Unfortunately an error did cost the two runs for us. But that’s baseball. We need to score more than one run to win a game. This our third year in row playing Clearview in the first round of the playoffs so it’s kind of a rivalry for us at this point. Two years ago we beat them first round and last year we beat them first round so this is a grudge match right here.”

At this point in the season most teams have already figured out how they are going to play a series and know what they are up against.

In the senior division it can also be tough getting enough players due to job and other commitments.

“At this point we do have a short line-up,” Drury said. “At our first game we only had nine guys. We were missing three key players. Today, again we’re missing three missing players. At the end of the day we fielded a team – nine guys – we’re a team. It doesn’t matter who comes, we have to come to play.”

In other North Dufferin Baseball League senior playoff series, the Ivy Leafs eliminated the Bolton Dodgers in three games and will advance to the next round. They will be up against the Clearview Orioles.

The Bolton Brewers will advance after knocking out the Midland Mariners in three games.

The Brewers will be up against the New Lowell Knights who eliminated the Ivy Rangers in a series that went three games.

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