Ontario teams, individuals dominate round-robin awards

At national under-18 fastpitch championship

Of the 13 major individual awards handed out at the 2017 Canadian under-18 male fastpitch championship in O’Leary last week, players from the Ontario teams collected 11 of them.

Chepstow Farms (Ont. One) and Caledonia Haldimand Athletics (Ont. Three) finished atop their respective roundrobin pools with 6-0 (won-lost) records.

Members of the Chepstow Lang Farms Ltd. team took home seven of the awards, with Dallas Kipfer earning two of them – top batter and allstar third baseman. He batted .588, with 10 hits and five runs batted in (RBI). Teammate Brady Hogg was named tournament MVP. The Chepstow catcher batted .500, scored three runs and batted in two runs.

Other Chepstow players receiving all-star selections were Curtic Ruetz at first base, .462; Logan Bell at second, 10 hits; and fielders Noah Baker, .538, and Logan Tolton who batted 11-for-22.

Nick Ford of the Caledonia Haldimand Athletics was named top pitcher, winning three round-robin games and recording an earned-run average of 1.55.

He also took the all-star selection for pitching. His teammate, Brad Adshead, won an all-star selection at shortstop, batting .429.

Brendan Hagerman of the Napanee Express (Ont. Two) took the all-star selection for catcher. He batted .471, with a home run and five RBIs. Preventing an Ontario sweep of the individual awards were Brendan Walker from Nova Scotia’s Colchester Royals and Dawson Bender of the Prince Albert Astros (Sask. Two).

Walker batted .400, and Bender had a .529 batting average to take all-star positions for fielder and utility respectively.