(Photo: Alexis Brudnicki)
TORONTO – The fourth time in four years, a new champion was crowned at Tournament 12 after Ontario Black defeated BC Orange, 6-3, in the championship contest that was played at Rogers Centre.
With the win, Ontario Black becomes the first Ontario squad to capture the title as they join Atlantic Maroon (2013), Québec Blue (2014) and Prairies Purple (2015) as teams that have been crowned champions over the four-year history of the event.
Tournament 12 is hosted annually by the Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Academy and brings together the top 160 high school players in Canada four a five-day event at Rogers Centre. The event is named in honour of Baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar who serves as Tournament Commissioner.
Ontario Black used a three run sixth inning to break a 3-3 tie and held on for the win as Junior National Team hurler Ben Abram (Georgetown, ON) tossed three scoreless frames with five strikeouts to pick up the win.
Junior National Team shortstop Adam Hall (London, ON) went 1-for-4 with an RBI and two stolen bases to put the finishing touches on a tournament that saw him hit .444 (8-for-18) with six RBI and eight stolen bases. Playing in his fourth and final Tournament 12, the 17 year-old was named tournament MVP.
"Obviously, that's pretty special," said Hall of picking up the MVP award in an interview with Bluejays.com. " It's pretty special to be able to do that in your last year, as well as to win the tournament."
Ontario Black opened the scoring in the third thanks to an Adam Plouffe (Toronto, ON) inside the park home run that was followed by an RBI from Hall on a fielder’s choice before a BC error brought in the third run of the inning.
BC answered back with three in the fourth to tie the score as Damiano Palmegiani (Surrey, BC) crossed home plate on a bases loaded walk before two more runs scored on a double play and wild pitch.
After that, reliever Ben Abram shut BC down with three dominant innings on the mound that saw him allow just one hit.
Both the Ontario Black and BC Orange coaching staffs featured former players who represented Canada international in the past including Chris Begg, Chris Robinson, Adam Stern, Tanner Watson and Pete Orr from Ontario Black, while Shawn Bowman, Corey Eckstein and Paul Spoljaric were on the BC orange staff.
For more information on Tournament 12 including rosters, results and box scores, please visit bluejays.com/T12.
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