Submitted story
The Alvinston Indians are back-to-back St. Thomas and District Fastball League champs!
The Alvinston Indians traveled to Fingal on Thursday for game 4 of the series against St. Thomas. St. Thomas had sent the best of five series to a fourth game, after a 2-1 win in Alvinston on Monday evening.
Fans were in for a treat on this evening, as St. Thomas carried their momentum into this game, with Mark Coleman making it 2-0 in the bottom of the first inning, when he clubbed a two-run homerun off of Indians starter Kyle Crawford.
St. Thomas held the 2-0 lead until the top of the fourth inning, when Alvinston finally woke their bats up. Craig Lyons singled to lead off the inning, and Ryan Chapman followed suit with a double. The next batter was Aaron Stocking and he doubled down the line to score both Lyons and Chapman, to tie the game. The next two Indians batters were retired, but Eric Hyatt was able to drive in the go-ahead run in Stocking, with a two-out RBI double. Alvinston had their first lead in the game, and were feeling better about their offence. The lead didn’t last long however, as Chris Wismer singled to lead off the bottom of the fourth for St. Thomas, and he would eventually round on the bases on a timely RBI single by Aaron Gould, to knot the game at 3’s.
The Indians regained the lead in the fifth inning, when Shields reached first via an error, Lyons singled to put two runners on, and then Ryan Chapman came through in the clutch, with an RBI single to score Shields for a 4-3 lead. Alvinston held the lead until the seventh inning, when the offence finally exploded. With one out and Jamie Shields on first, Craig Lyons clubbed a two run homerun, that proved to be a dagger for St. Thomas. The Indians did not stop there though. Chapman had his third hit of the game, when he smashed a triple in the gap. Stocking then reached first via a hard earned walk, and then Brad Cooper got his second hit of the game, hitting a single that plated Chapman for a 7-3 lead. With two out, Eric Hyatt got his second hit of the game, when a high chopper was able to score Stocking, with Hyatt earning the RBI infield single.
With an 8-3 lead, Alvinston allowed a run to St. Thomas in the seventh when Mark Coleman drove in his third run of the game on a sacrifice fly to score Aaron Gould, who singled to start the inning. The final score was Alvinston 8, St. Thomas 4.
With the win, Alvinston earned their second championship in consecutive seasons, and their fourth in the past six years in the St. Thomas & District Major Fastball League. Crawford was the winning pitcher for Alvinston, allowing 4 runs, all earned, while allowing 5 hits and 6 walks with 10 strikeouts. Ryan Cummings suffered the loss for St. Thomas, but he was the reason the Storm climbed back into the series, behind his quality pitching. Alvinston was able to touch him up for 11 hits on this night, but he was nearly unhittable in game three, and still had 11 strikeouts on the evening.
Alvinston finished their season with a 29-3 record in league and playoff play, with only one loss coming on home turf in the 2014 season.