The Newmarket Hawks of the Greater Toronto Baseball League have captured the 1st annual CABC Gold Bat Invitational Tournament title Sunday night in Sarnia, ON. The Hawks had a busy Sunday as they had to win three games to take home the tournament title which included a win over the host Sarnia Brigade in the championship game by a score of 5-2. 

 

The Newmarket club was 1-1-1 in round robin play. They opened the tournament on Friday night with a tilt against the Burlington Brants of the COBA Major Baseball League. In a game that was carried live on the CABC Facebook page the Brants and Hawks battled to a 4-4 draw in this contest. On Saturday, they had a pair of games which saw them defeat the Tecumseh Thunder at noon by a score of 10-0 and then dropped a 5-3 decision to the Oakville A's right after to finish up the round robin. 

 

The Sarurday evening round robin games were affected by some weather that came into the Sarnia area. One game had to be suspended and we were unable to play the quarter-final games saturday evening due to wet field conditions. Enter the real heroes of the weekend, as the field crews at Blackwell Park and Errol Russell Park were up at 6am Sunday morning and had both playing surfaces looking like it hadn't even rained a drop that night. I would like to give my sincere gratitude and thanks for all of our field crews from this past weekend as they were absolutely phenominal all weekend long.

 

After the completion of the last round robin game at 10am, we were set for quarter-final action at noon. The Hawks, based on their 3rd seed had a date with the Windsor Athletics of the Can-Am League at Errol Russell Park. Newmarket came out hot in this one as they scored five runs in the 2nd inning and didn't look back as they won by a score of 12-2.

 

Young lefty Lucas Earle was the winning pitcher in this one going the distance on the hill. Offensively, CF Darcy Moore was 3-for-4 with three singles, an RBI and a pair of runs scored while 3B Tyler Giancos was 2-for-3 with a double, a walk, two runs scored and two RBIs.

 

With the win, the Hawks pushed on to the semi-finals and a date with the Windsor Stars. This game was a re-match of the 2023 Ontario Men's AAA Elimination Finals from last year. Newmarket got on the board first in this one as Darcy Moore lauched a 3-run HR in the 3rd inning for an early 3-0 lead.

 

The Stars chipped away at that lead though as they plated two runs in the bottom half of the inning to cut the lead to 3-2. The score would reamin that way until the 6th inning when the Hawks would tack on a pair of runs for a 5-2 lead. The Stars would get one back in the home half of the 7th inning but Newmarket would take this game by a score of 5-3. 

 

Carson Hepburn would go the distance for Newmarket on the hill and collect the win in this contest. Offensively, Darcy Moore led the Hawks offensive with his three run blast. Bryn Sanford and Troy McLoughlin scored the other runs for Newmarket. Noah Pickering was the losing hurler for the Stars. Carter Reh and Jake Lumley both had a pair of hits to pace the Windsor offense in this game. 

 

That set up the championship final where the Hawks would meet up with a red hot Sarnia Brigade team. The Brigade were 3-0 in round robin play as they outscored opponents 27-8 in those three games and took the 1st overall seed heading into the playoff round. They defeated the Thornhill Reds in the semis in an entertaining back and forth game by a score of 10-7.

 

This was a very tightly contested game early on as Newmarket was putting lots of pressure on Brigade starter hurler Kaden Gray. The Hawks had a number of chances to opening the scoring but Gray and the Sarnia defense would escape a few jams as Newmarket left the bases loaded twice in the first three innings. 

 

The Brigade would open the scoring in the home half of the 4th inning as Logan Buntrock would lead off with a single which was followed by a Gray triple to cash in the first run of the game. Rebel Bats Tournament Top Hitter Kyle Maloney would follow that with an RBI groundout to 2nd base to plate Gray and give Sarnia a 2-0 lead after four innings. 

 

It didn't take long for the gritty Newmarket club to answer though. Troy McLoghlin would draw a one out walk in the top of the 5th inning. The next batter was veteran OF Lenny Wood and he deposited a Kaden Gray fastball over the fence in right field to tie the game at 2-2.

 

After a couple of scoreless frames, the Hawks would break the deadlock in the 7th inning using a walk, a trio of singles and a sac fly to take a 5-2 lead to the bottom of the 7th inning. Brigade 3B Blake Butler would lead off with a single but that would be all offensively that inning for the Sarnia club as Newmarket would take this game 5-2. 

 

Veteran hurler Josh Appel would go the distance for Newmarket (the 3rd CG on the day for the Hawks) and pick up the win. Veteran lefty Alex McLean, who relieved Gray in the 5th inning, was saddled with the hard luck loss. The Gold Bat Tournament Championship was the first one handed out since 1999 when a team from Puetro Rico won the title that year. The CABC is extremely happy and honoured to be able to bring back this beautiful piece of history in the Sarnia community.

 

As mentioned before, the tournament top hitter was OF Kyle Maloney of the Sarnia Brigade. The Tournament MVP from the Newmarket Hawks was 1B Tyler Lansley. Both players received beautiful bats courtesy of one of our amazing sponsors Rebel Bats. A big thank you to Dave Teboekhorst and his team from Rebel Bats for hanging out with us in Sarnia all weekend with their display tent.

 

I would like to give a massvie thank you to James Grant and Sandra Torelli for helping us in putting togther this amazing event. I would also like to thank the huge group of volunteers from the Sarnia community who helped with concession stands, field maintenance and site covening to make sure that everytihng ran so smoothly all weekend long. Finally, to the Sarnia community thank you for welcoming us in and making each game such an amazing atmosphere at the park. It was a pleasure to meet a large number of you throughtout the weekend. 

 

Plans are already in the works for the 2025 CABC Gold Bat Invitational Tournament. We will be securing a date very soon and we will also be looking to increase the field of teams for next season. The tournament committee will be sending this information out to prospective teams around the end of August so that teams can discussion this option at their year end meetings.