By Greg Dennis
In the end, it was one bad bounce that dashed the hopes of Birchmount Park Collegiate’s baseball team in OFSAA provincial qualifying tournament. But the boys still finished the 2012 season with heads held high, making their school and community proud of their determined run at the championship.
Game One
Birchmount qualified for the provincial’s by winning four of five in the city finals, and carried that momentum into the OFSAA tournament with an opening win on June 6 in Mississauga. Jack Dennis pitched a complete game and got the extra-inning hit that produced the winning run in a 7-5 victory over Brockville Collegiate. The local lads were behind 4-0 at one point but scrapped back to tie it in the 7th inning and then win it in the 8th.
Game Two
Game Two began the same, with St. Aloysius Gonzaga grabbing a 4-0 lead in the fourth. But this game wouldn’t end as well as the first game. Birchmount fell 8-1 and would need to win three straight games in the double-knockout tournament to qualify for the provincial finals.
Game Three
They gave it their best the next day in Game Three against Michael Power/St. Joseph High School. Birchmount was clinging to a 2-1 lead after four innings before After Michael Power tied the game in the fifth. In the sixth, Birchmount pitcher Wes Harding put a couple runners on base. Harding then got two quick outs and it looked like Birchmount would escape trouble when Harding got the batter to tap a routine grounder towards short. But the ball hit a seam in the infield grass as Jake Murphy positioned himself for the play and it bounced up and over his head and into left field, scoring two big runs for Michael Power.Down 5-2, Birchmount would load the bases in the bottom of the 7th but couldn’t get the big hit – or bad bounce – in order to cash in the runs.
Final Results
Michael Power was one of four teams that qualified for the semi-finals, joining Sinclair, St. Michael’s College school and Windsor’s Holy Names Catholic high school. The provincial final was won by Holy Names, with an 8-2 victory over St. Mike’s at the Rogers Centre. Birchmount last won the Prentice Cup awarded to the top boys high school baseball team, in 2009.
Written by Greg Dennis, a communications advisor and baseball dad
