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NDBL celebrates achievements in baseball

March 15, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The North Dufferin Baseball League celebrated 2018 achievements at an awards lunch on March 10 in Lisle.

The League recognized Bill Patton for his involvement and support of the League with the prestigious President’s Award.

The President’s Award is the hallmark of recognition within the League. 

It was only the ninth time someone has received this award. 

Patton has served on the League executive in various capacities from the 1960’s to the 1980’s including two terms as president.

He spearheaded the development of a junior division in 1983 that has ensured a stronger league for both junior and senior baseball.

Patton was also recognized for his playing and coaching career in junior, senior, and oldtimers baseball.

Brett Chater of the Bolton Brewers had a banner year  and won four awards.

He received the award for best batting average at .517, the top best-on-base percentage at .689, setting a new League record with 45 runs scored. 

Chater was also named the most valuable player in the senior division. 

Brad Grieveson of the Ivy Leafs won the best pitcher title.

His coaches, Vince White and Sean Hayward were honoured as coach of the year.

Adrian Gutierrez of the Ivy Rangers was recognized as the top homerun hitter for the season with eight knocked out of the ball park for the season.

Nick Hodgson of the Orangeville Giants was selected as the most sportsmanlike player.

Orangeville’s Drew Huerter claimed his second straight best catcher award.

In the junior division, Lucas Day of the Mansfield Cubs won the best batting title with a .507 average, had the best on base percentage at .678 and was named the most valuable player.

Charlie Jeans of the Ivy Blues was named best pitcher and also hit four homeruns in the regular season to take the title in the category. Teammate Mitch Tucker was on top of the list for most runs scored with 34.

Liam Woodford of the Midland Twins won the most sportsmanlike award.

During the league meeting following the awards, a new entry from Clarksburg was approved. The Aurora Jays requested a leave of absence keeping the senior division at 14 teams. In the junior division, New Lowell and Lisle are not returning leaving a five-team division with Midland, Mansfield, Ivy, 

Orillia, and Orangeville.

The membership renamed the Past President’s Trophy for the senior division most sportsmanlike player to the Tom Anderson Memorial Award. Anderson played with Lisle for three decades and won the sportsmanlike award numerous times. He passed away in December.

It was an intense two periods of overtime that ended when Orangeville District Secondary School Bears forward Andy Whitton banged the puck into the Centre Wellington District ship.

The game was played out on Centre Wellington home ice on Thursday, February 28.

It was an intense game between two well matched teams, both of them equally deserving to be in the championship game.

Centre Wellington came to the championship as a first place team with an 8-1-1 record.

They defeated Wellington Heights Secondary School 3-1 in the quarter-final round.

The Bears ended the regular season in second place with an 8-2 record. 

They knocked out Bishop Macdonell 

with a 3-1 win in their semi-final game 

to earn the right to go to the championship.

The Centre Wellington team was first on the scoreboard in the championship game.

Whitton scored to tie the game in the second period when he made a beautiful deke around the Centre Wellington goalie to put the puck in on the open side.

The teams played to a 1-1 tie at the end of the third to force overtime to decide a winner.

After a five minute OT period that 

didn’t produce goal, the teams re

turned for a second overtime period 

but with a four-on-four style of play.

The Bears scored with 3:16 left on the clock to claim the title.

The team did an excellent job on both offence and defence in the game with goalie Cole Murray making a lot of great saves in net.

Coach Justin Davis did a great job working with the team this season.

“They hit us a lot and tried to put the pressure on us, but I think after that first goal we bounced back really well,” 

said Bears forward Andy Whitton after the game. “We got pucks deep and 

got the pressure going. Definitely the 

nerves were going in the overtime period,” adding that the four-on-four overtime boosted their confidence es

pecially when Centre Wellington got a penalty. “We were on the powerplay so we knew at some point we were going to score.”

With the win, the Bears will go on to compete with other championship teams at the Central Western Ontario Secondary Schools (CWOSSA) competition.

CWOSS was scheduled to get underway on March 4-5.

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