Adam ScottiOn a sunny, cold afternoon in Côte St.-Luc, the McGill Redmen earned a place in the Canadian Intercollegiate Baseball Association Northern Conference Final by handling the visiting Carleton Ravens in a two-game sweep.
The Redmen won the first game of the doubleheader, 8-2.
Starting pitcher Conrad Hall dominated on the mound, giving up only three hits in six and a third innings.
Hall had good defence behind him, and got plenty of early run support.
“It’s a lot easier when you’re up by five runs after the second inning,” said Hall.
Head Coach Ernie Dalessandro testified to the importance of getting a win to start off the series.
“It’s always big, I mean the way the playoffs are set up, [if] we finish first we get home-field [advantange for] the first two games but if we split, which usually happens in a doubleheader, then we’ve got to travel to their park. It’s a sudden-death game at the opposition’s field and anything can happen. So it’s huge, very huge.”
After refueling with grilled cheese sandwiches and poutine at a nearby arena, both teams came out a bit sluggish for the second game, which McGill won 7-3.
It was much tighter than the first, and Carleton took its first lead of the series when it went up 1-0 in the third inning.
But the Redmen quickly tied the score later in the inning and then broke it open with a three-run fourth. Casey Auerbach contributed one RBI in the inning and four total in the two-game set.
“I was seeing the ball well,” he said. “Guys got on base in front of me and I was able to come up with some clutch hits and we were able to score some runs.”
In the aftermath of a big win on Thanksgiving weekend, next week’s final against Concordia seems a long way away.
“Right now, the boys are going to have a night to have a good time,” said Dalessandro, “[And] take a couple days to study. It is the weekend, a holiday weekend, so some of them will probably go home. But we’re going to start working out Tuesday night.”
The team will be preparing to play the Concordia Stingers, who have a 3-1 edge in regular season play against the Redmen.
Still, McGill is the top seed in the conference and will start off the series at home, which is, unfortunately, Concordia’s home field as well.
“We played [them] tight so far this year,” said Auerbach, “So we’ve got to keep the bats hot. We know we’re going to get the pitching so if we play good defence we’ll be all right.”
“Everything was working today—defence, pitching, hitting,” said Hall, “so I think we’re just going to try and not suck.”
The Redmen will play the Stingers on Saturday at noon in the CIBA Northern Conference Final at Trudeau Field in Côte St.-Luc.
