The St. Clair College Men's Baseball team was crowned Provincial Champions for the fourth consecutive year after a 4-2 win over host Lambton College Saturday afternoon.
Lambton opened the scoring in the third inning with a run, but St. Clair responded quickly, putting two runs across in the bottom half. The pattern repeated itself in the fourth inning and the Saints took a 4-2 lead that stood up the remainder of the game.
Starter Michael Grondin (Windsor, ON/Riverside) took the win working the first 5.1 innings and combined with fellow St. Clair rookie Jonas Le Clair (Windsor, ON/Holy Names) who earned the save, pitching 1.2 innings. Both pitchers managed to work out of jams to secure the victory.
Spencer Morin (LaSalle, ON/St. Thomas of Villanova) created havoc all day offensively finishing 3-for-4 at the plate, including a key two-out triple that scored the go-ahead run for the Saints in the fourth inning, adding a stolen base.
"Despite not having his best stuff during the regular season, I had a chat with Spencer a week before our Championship to share the trust that I had in him, regardless of his performance up to that point," said Duncan. "I am glad this conversation flipped the switch for him and led us to bring the Provincial Championship home, once again."
"We had guys that didn't get any individual awards during the regular season but had a great showing all season or during our Championship like Heinbuch, Glasgow and Morin," Duncan said.
Owen Levesque (Windsor, ON/St. Joseph's) was named St. Clair's Player of the Game going 2-for-3 with an RBI while Rowan Glasgow (LaSalle, ON/Sandwich) also had an RBI as part of his 2-for-4 day at the plate.
The road to the finals saw the green and gold narrowly edge out Centennial College by a score of 10-9 during their first game Friday morning. Friday evening, The Saints beat Lambton College 7-1 to advance to the final game, where they faced Lambton once again.
The Saints nearly ran the table this season, putting up a record of 17 wins, one loss during the regular season. The team won all three games in the OCAA Championships to earn Gold.
"We are proud of the job our players did this year," said Head Coach Roberto Duncan. "Although having a perfect season would've been a nice accomplishment, the end goal was to win another championship for St. Clair College and keep our name at the top, and we got it done!"
Prior to the medal and banner ceremony, Morin was recognized as the Championship MVP after batting .777 with four RBI to go with three runs scored in St. Clair's three games.
Glasgow finished his tournament hitting .500 and was named to the Championship All-Star squad, joining teammate Jake Heinbuch (Stratford, ON), who pitched a complete game, 13 strikeout performance against Lambton Friday night.
The OCAA Championships were held at Errol Russell Park on Stan Slack Field in Sarnia. Since the inception of OCAA Men's Baseball in 2013, the Saints men have claimed nine of the 11 championships contested.
"Being able to win nine of the 11 Championships is not something we take for granted," said Assistant Coach Tristan Bouchat. "The standard was set with guys like Kyle Breitner and Eric Cunningham and has carried through the team over the years."
"We are lucky to continue to have a solid group of veterans that are able to lead the younger players and instill the winning culture on them."