Important baseball games were played this weekend with the provincial hardball championships on Labour Day weekend at stake.

Teams from the North Dufferin Baseball League compete against one and another in different categories to determine which team will advance to the provincials.

Creemore Braves, the league's three-time defending champion and currently 9-0 in league play, won the 'C' category.  

New Lowell, who is also having an excellent season, 8-1, captured the 'B' qualifiers; and at the 'D' level a winner wasn't crowned.

Creemore's Bryan Post was seemingly unstoppable at the plate, blasting four home runs and hitting home 10 of the team's 14 runs scored.

Braves' manager Hammer Kinghan had tremendous praise for Post but he was quite clear in stating, "all in all it was just a good team effort" which included solid pitching from Brad Grieveson, Matt Baldry and Ryan Bartly.

Creemore won the final game 5-2 against Barrie As; they earlier beat them 3-1.  

The Braves also defeated Aurora 6-5.  

Barrie advanced with a 7-1 victory over Aurora.

Four teams wanted to go to Kendal for the championships but the winner was New Lowell, beating out the Clearview Orioles in the final two games, 10-0 and 4-0.  

In the other games played, Clearview beat Orillia 10-9, Ivy edged New Lowell 7-6, Orillia lost to New Lowell 1-0, Clearview beat Ivy 2-1, and New Lowell eliminated Ivy with a 6-1 score.  

The 'D' qualifiers didn't finish because a thunderbolt sliced a tree that fell on a transformer at the Midland ball park.  

The Lisle-Bolton game was in its ninth inning (NDBL games are seven innings long) when rain halted the match.  The thunderbolt finalized that the game couldn't be played.  Later this week, the two teams will play the remainder of the game, and if Lisle wins the same two teams will play the championship game after.

Other 'D' scores were Midland 4-Angus1, Lisle 5-Barrie Bs 0, Angus 4 Barrie Bs 3, Bolton 6-Lisle 0, Lisle 11- Angus 1, Bolton 7 - Midland 2, Bolton 4 - Midland 3.

The provincials are played in Kendal (B), Tillsonburg (C) and Wallaceburg  (D) the first weekend in
September.

And how about a big kudos to Trevor Downey for winning the Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings.  Downey is a Honeywood native, playing his minor hockey there.  He later played Junior 'B' with the Collingwood Blues. He also wore a Creemore Chiefs jersey for a couple of games.  

  It'll be quite a day when Downey brings the cup to potato country.

Alex Hargrave is a sports writer for The Stayner Sun. His column appears each week.