Bolton Braves meet strong opposition in early going

Barrie traveled to Bolton May 14 for the first meeting of these two midget baseball teams.

The Bolton Braves, unfortunately had difficulty with the bats and despite getting runners on base, had trouble bringing them home.

Curtis Braun started pitching for the Braves and put in a solid first inning. After the lead-off batter reached 1st base on a single, Braun shut down the inning by catching the next batter's pop up and striking out the next two.

The Braves had a good scoring opportunity in the first with two out. Jeff Vickers hit a solid single but came up lame at 1st base. Chad Manning was subbed in and quickly stole 2nd. Jeff Thompson earned a walk and Vince Capitano followed with another walk to load the bases. Unfortunately the runners were left stranded to end the inning when the next batter grounded out.

Pitching difficulties and errors caused problems for Bolton in the 2nd inning when Barrie was able to go through their batting order and score seven of the eleven batters faced. When Bolton came up to bat things looked good when Braun led off with a single but the next three batters went down on strikes leaving him on base.

Thompson took over pitching duties and was quite successful over three innings allowing only 2 runs with 7 strikeouts. Plays in the field by Capitano, Adam MacDonald and Cody Renzetti helped to keep the Barrie offence down.

The Braves cashed in two runs in the 3rd when Manning got on base with a fielder's choice followed by a patient Thompson with a walk. Manning stole 3rd and then a Barrie error allowed him to score and Thompson to reach 3rd. Another misplay by the Barrie second baseman on Braun's hit got Thompson home safely. In the 4th inning the Braves loaded the bases when pitches hit Will Krisman and Manning and Luke Ratcliffe singled, but again the bats went dead and the players were left on base. There would be no more scoring opportunities for the Braves in the game.

Aiden Long finished the last two innings on the mound and allowed just 3 runs with one unearned. Fielders Braun, Andrew Reid and Renzetti were valuable in silencing the Barrie offense. The final score was 12-2 for Barrie.

May 21 saw a rematch between the Aurora Jays powerhouse and the Braves. Manning was the starting pitcher for Bolton and went for 3 innings. Despite pitching well, the Jays were able to get a hold of the balls with their bats and errors in the field proved costly. Nine Aurora runs were scored by the end of the 3rd with 6 runs being unearned.

The Braves scored one of their own runs in the 1st inning when Ratcliffe got to 1st on a single. This was followed by walks to Vickers and Renzetti. With the bases loaded, Ratcliffe scored when Jonathan Conte was awarded 1st base on catcher interference.

Thompson went to the mound in the 4th inning and pitched through the 8th allowing 5 runs with 8 strikeouts. Some good defensive plays were made in the field by first baseman Renzetti and a pretty relay from the outfield buy Manning to Ratcliffe to Capitano to get the batter, who was trying for a triple, out at 3rd.

The Braves played some catch up in the 4th when Conte reached base on a walk and Thompson singled. Long earned an RBI when the ball he hit took a nasty bounce in front of the second baseman to score Conte, and Thompson scored on an overthrow to 3rd by the catcher. A single by Manning and a stealing attempt allowed Long and Manning to score with another overthrow by the catcher. Again the bats went flat until the 7th inning. Then singles were hit by Ratcliffe, Renzetti and Thompson allowing runs to be scored by Braun and Renzetti. The final score would be 14-7, a much better result than the last meeting between these two teams.

Thanks to Wanderosa Wood Products for their sponsorship of the team this year.