Maxime Sawicki

The top-seeded McGill Redmen lost to the reigning National Champion Concordia Stingers in the Canadian Intercollegiate Baseball Association Northern Conference Final in a best-of-three series, two games to one. McGill won the first game 5-4, lost 11-1 in the next game, and then fell 1-0 in the decisive third game.

The win advanced Concordia to the CIBA National Championships as divisional champs.

Shortly after the game, McGill learned that they would be advancing to nationals as a wild card, but during the game both thought they were fighting for their playoff lives.

Six teams will go to Windsor, Ontario next weekend for pool play, semi-finals, and the national final. McGill will have another chance to knock off the Stingers there, as both have a legitimate shot at the title.

Fifth-year closer Anthony Carbone was rock solid on the mound. In game one, he entered the game at the top of the seventh with a one-run lead and the chance to put Concordia away. He quickly struck out two batters and forced an easy fly ball to record the save.

“I live for that kind of pressure,” Carbone said. “I’m a wreck on the bench watching the games. I’m so stressed out [but when] I get in the bullpen and start warming up, I start to just calm down and I get on the mound and that’s basically been my element […] I was excited to get into that game.”

Carbone shut out the Stingers when he came on in the bottom of the sixth in game three to keep McGill within striking distance. However, the Concordia pitching tandem of Andre Lagarde and Braden Simpson blanked McGill to preserve the win.

Concordia’s dugout was loud throughout the first game and the volume only increased as the weekend progressed.

When the McGill players were  asked if the noise had any effect on tthem, the response was an unequivocal “No.”

“The guys were telling me on the bench [that Concordia was jeering me], but when I [got] on the mound I really don’t hear anything,” Carbone said. “Whenever they try to get under my skin it doesn’t really work. I just hear a bunch of noise.”

“I’ve been around long enough that that stuff doesn’t bother me at all,” said shortstop Alex Day, the offensive catalyst in McGill’s game one victory. “You come to expect that when you play Concordia, that’s the kind of team they have, and if that works for them, great. We like to think of ourselves as a classier ball club.”

Still, McGill catcher Justin Cloutier was visibly rattled by comments from the Concordia dugout, leading to a brief verbal altercation.

McGill’s Head Coach Ernie D’Alessandro, for his part, would have liked even more noise, but from the bleachers.

“It’s the usual stuff, it’s the parents, it’s the families that come out… but it’d be nice to get the students,” he said. “It’s not close to campus but it’s not hard to get here. Either set up a bus from school to come here or there’s the 138 or the 104 [that] stop right in front of the ballpark… guys are busting their humps, they’ve had a good season [and] it’d be nice to have a little bit of student support.”

The Redmen travel to Windsor for the CIBA National Championship next weekend. They hope to rebound from the tightly contested defeat and return home with the gold.