Bolton Brewers best Braves to reach North Dufferin semi-final

Written By JAKE COURTEPATTE

It took just three games for the Bolton Brewers to book their ticket into the North Dufferin Baseball League semifinal series.

The league-best Brewers annihilated the eighth-place Creemore Braves in their best-of-five opening round series over the weekend, leaving the Braves with little room for error with their heavy bats.

Game one saw the Brewers host an 11 – 2 whooping at North Hill Park in Bolton, where Trent Barwick opened the series on the mound to pick up his fourth win of the season.

Brewers ace Andrew White was lights-out in game two, continuing his perfect season by shutting out the Braves by a score of 11 – 0, allowing just a trio of hits all game.

Offensively, his team gave him plenty of firepower in knocking three home runs out of the park, including a three-run blast from Frank Amantea and solo bombs from both John Hutchinson and Stephen Warden.

The series was closed out before Creemore even knew what hit them, with a 17 – 7 score in game three closing the books on the series.

It was a nice bounce back for the Brewers squad, who struggled the previous weekend in the annual civic holiday tournament hosted by New Lowell, where they were eliminated from contention in two straight games.

The Ivy Leafs, who finished tied atop the North Dufferin regular season standings board with the Brewers, had a similar effort against the seventh-place Lisle Astros, closing out their series before the end of the weekend by scores of 7 – 1, 3 – 2, and an 8 – 0 shutout.

Both sides await the final decisions in the other pair of first round series, where the third-place New Lowell Knights are surprisingly struggling with the Midland Mariners, who squeaked into the playoff picture. New Lowell currently leads the series two games to one.

The Clearview Orioles and Ivy Rangers are also still battling it out, with Ivy taking the first two games of the series before Clearview managed a win and a tie in games three and four respectively.