Burnaby Bulldogs Win Canadian Baseball Championship

Gold Medal Game

Burnaby Bulldogs – 1 Dartmouth Moosehead Dry – 0

The Dartmouth Moosedhead Dry lost their first and only game of the Canadian Senior Baseball Championship Sunday night. Unfortunately it was the gold medal game, and the team from Burnaby, BC had the slight edge when all was said and done.

The Championship game featured a pitchers duel between Dartmouth hurler Marek Deska and tournament MVP Steve McCrea. Deska struck out the side in the first and the fifth innings on his way to a three-hit, 10 strikeout performance. The only blemish on the start coming on solo homerun by the Bulldogs firstbaseman Kevin Atkinson in the fourth.

McCrea was stellar as well and tossed seven innings allowing only three hits of his own and strking out six. It was an efficient performance by McCrea, needing only 85 pitches to record the complete game shutout.

The Moosehead Dry offense which had been so potent all tournament simply couldn’t solve the big righthander.

“We just couldn’t get the bats going”, said Dartmouth slugger Darren Doucette. “Someday we’ll sit back and realize that we did something special here and went on a pretty good run, but let’s be honest, silver sucks.”

It was a “pretty good run” indeed by Dartmouth, allowing only four runs over the entire tournament and had scored at least four runs in every game. Unfortunately it is the score in the final game that matters most.

A game like that makes it difficult to award a winner, because neither team deserved to lose. It would almost be better if the game had been a blowout or high scoring on both sides. As it is, Marek Deska gets saddled with a loss in a game that he pitched outstanding.

Piror to the gold medal game, Fredericton Peterbilt/DQ Royals edged the Brandon Cloverleafs 2-1 in extra innings to take the bronze.

The Royals and Cloverleafs played through seven scoreless innings before Greg Hallett’s double and a Brandon error enabled Jeremy Turgeon to score the game’s first run in the top of the eighth. Hallett scored on a single by Derek Wilson to make it 2-0 for Fredericton.

Garrett Popplestone stroked an RBI single in the bottom of the eighth for Brandon before Steve McCarty put the finishing touches on his complete-game two-hitter, inducing Jeff Neufeld to ground out to second base to end the game.

This wraps a great tournament hosted by Dartmouth. Thanks to all the organizers and volunteers that made this event possible and so successful.

Congratulations to the Burnably Bulldogs for the 2010 Canadian Senior Baseball Championship.