By: Ted Beal
This article was written and published by St. Clair Athletics and Recreation
Durham College vs. Centennial College
The second and final game of day 1 at the OCAA Men's Baseball Championship featured the 5th-ranked Durham Lords squaring off against the 4th-ranked Centennial Colts. Durham failed to capitalize on their hot start to the contest and ultimately fell to the Centennial Colts 6-5. With the win, the Colts have clinched a berth in the semi-finals and will take on the Humber Hawks on Friday.
Durham opened the scoring in a big way in the top of the 1st inning with a Tyler Chong (Markham, ON) RBI single followed up by a Nick King (Whitby, ON) 2-RBI single to take an early 3-0 lead. Durham would extend their lead in the 2nd inning with another Chong RBI single. The Colts got 2 runs back in the bottom of the 2nd with a pair of RBI singles from Zachary Worden (York, ON) and Shoya Hase (Japan). The Colts' two sacrifice flies in the 3rd inning tied the game up at 4-4. In the bottom of the 5th inning, Centennial took their first lead of the game with two more RBI singles by Robert McCarty-Salerno (Scarborough, ON) and Worden.
The Colts gave up a 7th-inning run to the Lords but held on to prevail 6-5 to advance to the semi-finals. After a slow start, Brandon Smith (Vaughan, ON) pitched a complete game throwing 129 pitches including 8 strikeouts and earned the win for the Colts while Ryan Mattes (Whitby, ON) took the loss for the Lords.
Player of the game for the Centennial Colts was Smith while Chong earned similar honours for the Durham Lords by going 3 for 4 and adding 2 RBIs in a losing effort. The Colts will now take on the Humber Hawks at 1:30 pm at Lacasse in the second semi-final.