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Battered Jays down two in championship series




By Jeff Doner

The Aurora Blue Jays aren't just battered and bruised, but they also find themselves down two games to none in their best-of-seven championship series against the Bolton Brewers after a double-header on Sunday.

With a large chunk of their starting lineup injured, the Jays had to be creative in filling out the lineup for the day.

Starter Brent Owen took to the bump for the first game, pitching the first seven innings before being relieved by Ian Rettie, who kept his team in it until extra innings.

The Jays had a lead in game one, but were unable to hold on, eventually suffering a 9 – 8 loss after 10 innings.

Game two was a bit of a different story with Bolton's offence waking up as the game wore on.

Nathan Drury started for the Jays and once again showed he has some good stuff, but Bolton got to him early to take a 1 – 0 lead in the first.

Not willing to let the game get away from them, the Jays dug in and took a 2 – 1 lead in the bottom of the inning. With the bases loaded, Chris Rettie drove in both runs with a double.

But Bolton would storm right back with another two runs in the second to take a 4 – 2 lead.

The Jays would get to within a run when Drury drove in second baseman Ted Beadle to make it 4 – 3 in the third, but it would be all Bolton from there, as they tacked on another four runs to solidify an 8 – 3 win.

Bolton second baseman Mike Wallace said his club was hoping to a least take one win back home, but is obviously pleased to be up two in the best of seven series.

“Aurora always plays us tough,” he said postgame. “I give them a lot of credit, they have some guys over there that probably shouldn't be playing, but they're giving it their best and they're putting up numbers. Gabel has been hitting and Bloom caught about 17 innings, that's pretty impressive.”
Chris Bloom injured his hamstring running to second late in game two and is questionable for game three.

Wallace also said it took his club a little while to get back into the swing of things.

“We had a bit of a layoff and I think we got rid of a bit of rust there in the first game, there were a couple bad errors, but we've definitely got a lot of optimism coming out of this one. Hopefully we can play some tighter defence though, it seems like whoever is going to make the plays is going to win.”

Andrew Bukovec, who was pulled off the bench to play a variety of roles on the field, said his team is down, but certainly not out.

“We're still confident that we can play a pretty good ball game and we're confident with whatever team we put there or whatever players we have that we can still come out on top,” he said.

“We've just got to play the defensively sound game that we're known for, come out and be smart at the plate, be aggressive on the base paths and I think we can keep up with these guys no matter who we have on the field.”

The rest of the schedule is as follows: Game 3 – Bolton on Sept. 12 at 7.30 p.m., Game 4 – Aurora on Sept. 15 at 2.00 p.m., Game 5 – Bolton on Sept. 19 at 7.30 p.m., Game 6 – Aurora on Sept. 21 at 2.00 p.m., Game 7 – Bolton on Sept. 22 at 1.00 p.m.

For more information visit www.ndbl.ca.
Excerpt: The Aurora Blue Jays aren’t just battered and bruised, but they also find themselves down two games to none in their best-of-seven championship series against...
Post date: 2013-09-11 19:50:15
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