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Mansfield Cubs claim NDBL Junior title

August 18, 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Mansfield Cubs claimed the North Dufferin Baseball League Junior division championship on Wednesday, August 9, after winning the final series in four games over the New Lowell Knight.

The third place Cubs upset the first place Knights who had finished first in the League with a 13-5 record.

The Cubs made it to the final after dispatching the Midlands Twins in the first round of the playoffs.

Going into the championships the Mansfield squad came out on top in game one with a 4-1 win on July 31.

Game two saw the Cubs take a two game lead with a 13-3 win on August 1.

New Lowell battled hard to take a 7-5 win in game three of the series.

Game four was back in Mansfield on Wednesday with the Cubs hoping to wrap it up and the Knights working hard to even the series and force game five.

The Knights opened the scoring in the third inning with a pair of runs.

The Cubs were on the scoreboard in the bottom of the third with a single run.

At the end of the fifth the game was tied at four.

The Cubs big inning came in the sixth starting with a hit to a hole in the outfield by Jacob Hall that brought in the go-ahead run.

A second hit brought in a run to move the Cubs two runs ahead.

A hit to right field near the foul line by Jake Currie bought time for two runners to make it across home plate. That was followed by another hit from Josh Johnston over second base that brought in the final run of the game.

The Knights had one more chance in the seventh inning to get back in the game but the Mansfield squad played a solid final inning to shut them down and win the game 9-4.

“We kept doing what we’ve been doing in every game of the playoffs,” said Cubs coach Dave Metz after the win. “We were so unlucky in that last game, I felt. We out-hit them 11-5, so we just kept going. Tonight they had that last at-bat so it kind of takes the pressure off. The pressure’s on them. In the playoffs we’ve had good defence, good pitching, but not a lot of strike-outs so it comes down to defence.”

Metz said the team worked on a plan starting at the beginning of the season.

“We discussed at the start of the year that our goal was to use the season to get ready for the playoffs. We had six really good playoff games out of six games. We won five and lost one. We had some good fortune mixed in there but we had six well pitched games, good defence, and six games with good clutch hitting.”

This was the fist time a Mansfield Cubs team has claimed the NDBL Junior title.


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