Brewers streak comes to an end as Orillia shuts them out

July 11, 2013 · 0 Comments

Bolton Brewers batter Trent Barwick hits for a single in the early going of last Thursday’s game at North Hill Park.
Photo by Brian Lockhart

By Brian Lockhart
It had to happen sooner or later.
The Bolton Brewers came up short last Thursday night to the Orillia Majors, losing 4-0 at North Hill Park.
The loss was only the second time this season the Bolton squad has come out of a game on the negative side. They lost their third game out back in May, to the Aurora Jays before going 11 straight without a loss.
It’s not like the Brewers lost to a lesser team. The Majors arrived in Bolton with a 13-3 record for the season and the Brewers knew it would be a highly competitive game between one of the top three teams in the league.
The Aurora Jays also rank up at the top in the points standings.
“It’s going to be a close game I think,” Brewers coach Mike Wallace said prior to the teams going into the first inning. “We played them last Wednesday and beat them 4-3, so it should be a close game.”
The fact that the Brewers have had such a solid record of wins doesn’t play into the pre-game warm up. Like most sports teams, they don’t dwell on what has happened; they concern themselves with the game at hand.
“We don’t talk about the streak,” Wallace said.
The Majors started off well, loading the bases in the first inning and bringing in their first win when a single drove in the runner to home plate.
With the bases again full-up, another dinger landed the batter on first and a second Orillia player scored to make it an early 2-0 lead for the visitors.
Bolton got on base in the bottom of the first inning with a single from Pat Warden, but the side was retired with no runs scored.
It was the first game this season where the Brewers failed to score a single run. Going into this contest, the Brewers had scored 108 over 15 games while allowing only 30 against.
The loss leaves the Bolton squad in second place in the standings with 26 points, but that is after 16 games.
The Majors are in first place with 30 points but they have played 19 games for the season, suffering four losses along the way.
The Aurora Jays are currently ranked third with 26 points after 18 games.
Going on the road, the Brewers have five away games in a row on diamonds around the region.
They return to their home diamond at North Hill Park in Bolton July 18, to host the Creemore Braves.
The first pitch is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. under the lights.