Decisive game five Thursday for the Bolton Brewers

 By Robert Belardi 

It's been quite the topsy-turvy first-round playoff series for the Bolton Brewers and it isn't quite finished yet. 

The Brewers will host the Barrie Angels Thursday night for Game Five in the first round of the North Dufferin League 2022 playoffs. The winner will advance to the second round. 

A week ago, the series kicked off in one of the most exhilarating fashions. It was a pitching showdown between Brewers pitcher Nick Hodgson and Angels pitcher Luke Earle. 

Tied up at 0-0 in the bottom of the seventh, a fielder's choice with the bases loaded set up a walk-off win for the Brewers. 

In Game Two in Barrie, it was another nail-biter between the two sides.

Down 5-1 heading into the bottom of the top of the fourth inning, the Brewers crawled back to reduce the deficit to two. 

Both teams would add another run each as the game ended 6-4. The Brewers totalled 13 hits on the night.

Amin Juracz and Dan Accardo had three hits each, but a point of emphasis heading into game four was the fact the Brewers were in desperate need to make sure runners on base come home. 

And the boys did just that, defeating the Angels by a large margin 10-0. 

The runs wouldn't stop coming in this game and, before you knew it, the mercy rule was applied in the bottom of the fifth inning. 

Everyone from Chris Fafalios, to Carter Burnside, to Josh Hickey, to John Hutchinson contributed in this big win. Everything had seemed to of fallen into place for the Brewers, who scored 231 runs overall throughout the regular season; the most runs for by any team in the league. 

“Just trust the guys behind you. Not one guy is going to do it themselves, but our offense really works together well as a unit. You saw it today, a bunch of guys taking pitches, going the other way, going deeper in the counts and all of a sudden to get a few doubles. Getting more pitches to hit,” Head Coach Mike Wallace said after the game. 

Heading into the elimination game, Wallace said his strategy was to get at the Angels early. The longer the other team lingers around the more things can go wrong. 

“Obviously, when you get to Game Five, anything can happen in Game Five.” 

First pitch is tonight at North Hill Park in Bolton at 7:30 p.m.