The Orangeville Bantam Bengals managed to accomplish their third and final goal for the 2009 Baseball season by winning the OBA B Championships this past weekend in Thorold, Ontario. After placing first in the regular season standings and then a trip to the York Simcoe Baseball Association Championship, the team set out to finish off the season in style in Thorold.

In their first game on Friday night, Orangeville managed to defeat the team from Beamsville 8 -3 and get a small amount of revenge. Beamsville had defeated Orangeville in 2007 to win the Peewee OBA Championship.

This time around pitchers Leo Labine and Chris Fitzsimmons held Beamsville to only three runs on five hits.

David Humphrey, Tyler Goertzen and Josh Huot powered the Orangeville offence.

In a nail-biter on Saturday morning, the Bengals posted a 4-3 win over St Thomas. First baseman Josh Hickey was responsible for all the Orangeville runs with a single and double leading to four RBI's.

Frank Leone chipped in with a single and two runs scored including the game winner.

Starting pitcher Mitchell Pike gave way in the fourth inning to Connor Smith who pitched his best game of the year and shut the door on St Thomas.

With the tying run on third base and none out Smith managed to coax a fly ball a strikeout and a soft grounder back to himself to end the game.

With the win Orangeville managed to secure a bye into the semi-finals on Sunday morning. The Bengals started Goertzen on the mound, pitching five strong innings.

Leone and Pike wrapped it up in relief, sending Beamsville home for the weekend.

Goertzen keyed the offence with three hits and two runs scored.

Labine managed to score three times off a pair of hits and Shaun Jackson crushed a double to left field clearing the bases in Orangeville's 11 - 4 victory.

The win put Orangeville into the Championship against Ancaster who would need to beat Orangeville twice due to the double knock out tournament rule.

In the first game Orangeville played its only poor game of the weekend.

Several errors in allowed Ancaster to erase a five run Orangeville lead and come back to win 9 -6.

To their credit, the Bengals never gave up

and had the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the seventh.

Kaitlyn Hauck ripped what looked like a possible game tying hit up the middle but Ancaster made a great play and were able to double up the base runner at second.

Labine and Chris Fitzsimmons were solid on the mound but the normally solid Orangeville defence fell apart.

Goertzen lead the offence with three runs scored and three hits in a losing cause. Pike,Hickey and Labine each had two hits.

This set up the final game of the season between Orangeville and Ancaster in a winner take all match.

It was no contest. With Orangeville playing their third game of the day, tired, disappointed at having blown a five run lead in the previous game, and with right fielder Kyle Holmes out with an injured hamstring it did not look good.

Starting pitcher Mitchell Pike with a sore arm gutted out four and one half innings of stellar pitching before departing with a 9 - 4 lead.

The ball was given to Chris Fitzsimmons who had been waiting anxiously on the bench to get into the game.

Visibly nervous on the mound, it didn't matter , Fitzsimmons pitched his best game of the year to shut the door on any Ancaster idea in this game of a comeback.

With two out in the bottom of the seventh and the Orangeville side awaiting the final out the Ancaster batter lofted a high fly ball into the infield sky.

Pike who had been pacing back and forth nervously at short stop like a cat called for the ball and made the catch bring the Orangeville Bengals out of the dugout and onto the mound mobbing Fitzsimmons with a 12 - 4 Championship victory.

The offence was keyed by David Humphrey with three hits and two runs scored and Huot with two hits and two runs scored. Hauck crushed a double over the left fielders head. Huot was awarded offensive player of the game while Hauck won defensive player of the game.

The coaching staff of Don Goertzen, Ken Huot, and Tony Pike are extremely proud of all the players. They also thank Rod Humphrey, Jeff Hauck and Dan Labine for helping out at practices.

The team was garnered support from Kevin Butler who came out to help the pitchers and Colin McKeen who helped teach the players how to play infield. Also thank you to our manager Tracy Hauck who made life very easy this year.

The team would like to acknowledge local resident Doug McKeen who for two years has spent countless hours both on the field and in his basement teaching the team the finer points of hitting.

Without his efforts none of this would have been possible and to a player, appreciate his passion for the game. And a special thanks to Gilbert Thompson and ACTS who have trained the team indoors for two years now to get them physically ready for the season.