2009 Elimination Tournament
The Whitby Canadians traveled to London, as they returned to the Senior A Elimination tournament for the first time in 12 years. After finishing as runner up at the B OBA's the last 3 seasons, the club felt it was time to step up a level, and compete against the best teams in Ontario.
In game 1, the club drew the Oakville A's from COBA. An ironic twist to this match up was that Oakville's ace pitcher, Gord Robertson was set to join the Canadians in the off season however Gord's plans changed at the last minute and he returned home, remaining with the A's.
Robertson got the ball in game 1 for Oakville and took on the Canadians' ace lefty Mike Arsenault. In the top of the 1st inning, with 2 out Arsenault hit the A's 3rd batter with a curve ball, and then allowed a double to the gap in right centre that put the A's up 1-0.
In the home half of the first inning, Andre Steer led off with a single and stole second, but 2 strikeouts and a ground out ended the inning. in the bottom of the 2nd, Matt Melissis led off with a double and moved to 3rd on an infield single by Sean Tremaine. After a strikeout, Jason George came to the plate and with a 1-0 count the Canadians attempted a suicide squeeze. George got the bunt down, but it bounced foul into the right handed batters box. Seeing the ball was foul, Melissis pulled up on his way to the plate and George didn't attempt to run to first. Unfortunately, the home plate umpire ruled the bunted ball fair; the Oakville catcher picked up the ball, tagged Melissis and threw out George at first base ending the inning and keeping the score 1-0 for the A's.
A leadoff single in the 4th inning by Tristan Beadle and stolen base put the tying run in scoring position, but again the Canadians could not get the timely hit to tie the game.
While the Canadians offense was sputtering, all Arsenault did on the mound was completely dominate the A's batters. After the first inning double, Arsenault didn't allow another hit for the remainder of the game pitching a complete game, 1 hitter, striking out 12 batters. Robertson wasn't as dominant on the hill for the A's, but got the big strike out when needed and was able to pitch out a couple of jams and give the A's a 1-0 victory in game 1.
With the loss, the Canadians were set to take on the Markham Pioneers in game 2 after they lost a 6-5 game in 12 innings to the Thornhill Reds.
Saturday morning, Lars Clay got the ball for Whitby as they took on the Pioneers and hoped to fight off being eliminated from the tournament.
Markham tallied 1 run in the top of the 1st inning to take the lead before the Canadians replied in the 2nd inning. Rob Patterson led off the inning with an infield single, and a Matt Melissis fielders choice erased Patterson at 2nd. Melissis then stole second and moved to 3rd on a single by catcher Ben Anderson. Sean Tremaine then brought home the tying run with a sac fly to centre field.
In the Pioneers 3rd inning, a fly ball to right field that was dropped and a sac fly resulted in a run, giving the Pioneers a 2-1 lead. Again the Canadians would reply in the 4th inning as Patterson led off with a walk and was sacrificed to 2nd. A hard single by Anderson put runners at the corners and another RBI by Tremaine, this time on a single, tied the game at 2's.
A 2 run homerun by Pioneers SS Steve Anderson in the 5th gave the Pioneers a 4-2 lead, and Markham tacked on 3 more runs in the top of the 7th to put the game away. With the 7-2 loss, the Canadians were eliminated from the tournament with an 0-2 record.
Despite losing both games, the Canadians showed in the eliminations, as well as the Oshawa and St. Catharines tournaments that they could play with the elite teams in the province, and are already looking at making improvements for next years return to the elim's.
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