CREDIT: FANSHAWE ATHLETICS
Baseball season has now come to a close and for the year, the Fanshawe Falcons went 11-7, going 6-2 at home, and 5-5 on the road with a team batting average of .317 and a .430 slugging percentage.

The OCAA Baseball Provincial Championship took place in Windsor on Oct. 22-23, with the Fanshawe Falcons capturing the OCAA bronze medal after a tough 10-9 loss to St. Clair.

The Falcons played in multiple games over the tournament weekend finishing with a game total of 1-2. Fanshawe began by taking a loss to host St. Clair in a close 5-3 game on Friday before rebounding with an 8-4 win over Centennial to advance to the medal round. Brad Verhoeven from St. Thomas, Ont., was named the player of the game (POTG) against the Saints and Connor Smith from LaSalle, Ont. was named POTG versus the Colts.

In the bronze medal game against the St. Clair Saints, which lasted just under two and a half hours, the Falcons started off strong and went up 5-0 in the top of the second inning. Drew Lawrence, from London, Ont., hit a single to open up the scoring for Fanshawe. Connor Smith followed with a sacrifice fly then Macguire Gordon, from Lucan, Ont., and Verhoeven then had back-to-back singles to extend the lead for the team.


OCAA All-Star Faris Adamou, from Mississauga, Ont., had an RBI single to make it 5-0 for the Falcons. The Saints responded with three runs in the bottom of the inning to keep the game within reach. Unfortunately, St. Clair came out strong in the fourth and had five runs to take an 8-5 lead.

St. Clair would continue to add two more runs in the fifth inning to extend their lead to 10-5. The Falcons held their own though, as they had a big push in the top of the sixth inning to diminish the lead of St. Clair. Eric Martyn, from Acton, Ont., and Adamou both had RBIs to get the Falcons back on track.

The Saints then committed a costly error that resulted in two more runs for Fanshawe to make it a one run game at 10-9 going into the final inning of the game. Unfortunately, despite Fanshawe’s best efforts, they were unable to complete the comeback, resulting in an OCAA bronze medal for the Falcons.

On the day, St. Clair out-hit the Falcons 11-9, with the Saints committing three errors. Evan Ferguson took the win for St. Clair and Wyatt Kerr took the loss for the Falcons.

Fanshawe’s Adamou was named player of the game and Verhoeven was named an OCAA Tournament All-Star for his excellent performance throughout the week.

The season has now come to a close and for the year, the Fanshawe Falcons went 11-7, going 6-2 at home, and 5-5 on the road with a team batting average of .317 and a .430 slugging percentage. The Falcons rocked the league with a combined number of 119 runs, shutting out two teams and having five games with double digit scores.

The team will now begin their offseason work and prep, getting ready for next year and next season.