Midwest wins 15U AAA Tier 2 title

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This article was published 01/08/2022 (1343 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kaden Allen held the previously unbeaten Red River Pioneers to just five hits and Aiden Lewis drove in four runs as Midwest won the Tier 2 final with a 13-1 victory at Baseball Manitoba’s 15-and-under AAA provincial championships at Simplot Millennium Park on Sunday.

“The kids hit the ball,” Midwest head coach Trevor Lewis said. “They were really aggressive at the plate and made some good at-bats, and Kaden was lights out on the mound. It’s pretty easy to play behind him.”

Meanwhile, South Central and Carillon were both 4-0 in Tier 1 action on Sunday afternoon when they met in the final game of the round-robin — South Central won 10-7 — and then they promptly played again in the final, with Carillon scoring two runs in the top of the eighth inning and then holding on for a 3-1 victory.

As a result of the extra-inning win, Carillon booked a spot at the 15U AAA western regionals in Edmonton, with Midwest heading to the AA western regionals in Estevan.

Midwest earned its spot in the Tier 2 final with a dramatic 3-2 victory over the Brandon Marlins on Saturday evening. Trailing 2-1 in the top of the seventh with two out and runners on second and third, Carter Johnston’s Texas leaguer dropped near the foul line in right field and scored two.

The Marlins finished with a record of 3-2, with two blowout wins, a three-run victory and two narrow losses in which they had the tying run on second in their final at-bat but couldn’t bring the runner home

Elsewhere, St. James went 2-3, Pembina Hills 1-4 and Interlake 0-5 in the Tier 2 round-robin. Oildome was the only Westman team to play in Tier 1, and they were winless at 0-5.

In the Tier 2 final, after a scoreless first inning, Midwest put a pair of runs across and then weathered a storm in the bottom of the inning when they made a pair of errors. With runners on first and third and two out, Allen induced a fly ball to left field to end the threat.

The game-changing moment came in the top of the third with runners on first and third and none out with Midwest clinging to the 2-0 lead. Aiden Lewis worked the count to 3-2 after fouling off a number of pitches and then drove a long fly ball just over the fence in right field for a three-run home run.

“I was just looking to put one in play because we had a runner on third base and all I needed to do was score him,” Aiden Lewis said. “When I saw it keep going I got excited. That’s the first this year.”

“It was definitely exciting,” Allen added. “Everyone was running out (to greet him at the plate) and all the fans were cheering.”

Defensively, Allen once again stepped up in the bottom of the third inning when he earned one of his four strikeouts to strand a Red River runner at second base. He said having the offence clicking made all the difference.

“It’s great having the run support and everyone getting on the sticks,” Allen said. “Everyone had a hit and everyone was contributing.”

Midwest struck again in the fourth inning, this time for four runs. They had already scored once and had two on when Red River elected to intentionally walk Allen, who is Midwest’s cleanup hitter.

That brought Seth Sulik to the plate, and he cleared the bases with a double to extend the lead to 9-0.

After Red River, which is based in and around northeast Winnipeg, went three-up three-down in the fourth inning, Midwest strung together four hits and added four more runs to make it 13-0, beyond the mercy-rule limit of 10 runs.

That gave the Pioneers one last at-bat to score four runs to get back under 10, but they managed just one, with two on when the game ended in the bottom of the fifth inning on a come-backer to Allen, who fired it to first base to end the game.

“It feels great,” Aiden Lewis said. “It’s nice to finally show some of the Winnipeg teams that even though they go to academies, some of the rural guys are just as good as them and work just as hard.

“Westerns, I can’t be more excited. All of us are.”

Midwest’s top four hitters each had four at-bats, and they collectively managed 10 hits, two walks, one hit by pitch, one reached base by error and made just two outs. They combined to score 11 runs.

But the hitting extended down the lineup, Trevor Lewis said.

“The thing that was really good about this weekend was that it didn’t matter where we were in the lineup, we were getting contributions from everybody,” Trevor Lewis said. “That’s been a big thing all year, that if one guy is down, another one picks them up. That’s why they deserve this so much.”

Meanwhile, at the 13U provincials in Altona, Brandon went 1-4 in Tier 1. Winnipeg South topped Carillon 9-3 in the final, with Pembina Hills topping Midwest 13-3 in the Tier 2 final.

The last provincial event of the summer will be held next weekend in Rivers as the host Comets will be joined by the Deloraine Royals, Boissevain Centennials, Neepawa Cubs, Brandon’s RFNow Cardinals, Cartwright Twins, Elmwood Giants and the Winkler Whips at the senior AA playdowns.

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