While the Barrie Baycats are home and cooled, they sit back and wait to see who they will play in the Intercounty Baseball League final.
And they will have to wait a little longer as the other best-of-five semifinal series, between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Welland Jackfish, is going the distance.
The fourth-seed Maple Leafs pushed the series to five games with a 9-3 win over the top-seed Jackfish on Wednesday night at Christie Pits in Toronto.
Game 5 is scheduled for Thursday night at 7:25 p.m. in Welland, with the winner advancing to take on the Baycats for this year's IBL crown.
Jose Vinicio led the Leafs’ offence last night with two singles and four RBI. Johnathan Solazzo went 2-for-4 with a home run and two RBI, while Ryan Dos Santos drove in two and Garrett Takamatsu had an RBI. Former Baycats slugger Jordan Castaldo singled twice and scored and Dan Marra went 2-for-3 with three runs.
Leafs pitcher Wilgenis Alvarado struck out nine in a complete-game effort. The Toronto starter allowed three runs on eight hits and walked four.
For Welland, James Smibert homered and drove in two, and Steven Moretto added a solo blast. Tyler Dupuis and Gianfranco Morello each singled twice.
Welland pitcher Ben Abram took the loss. He gave up seven runs (six earned) on eight hits over 5.1 innings. He walked two and fanned four.
The Baycats, meanwhile, are pushing for their seventh IBL title and first since 2019, when they rattled off a string of six straight championships. The other title came in 2005, just four years after the team was founded.
In this year's semifinal, the third-seed Baycats swept the second-seed Kitchener Panthers by scores of 5-4, 7-4 and 8-4, wrapping up the series on Tuesday night.
