The Okotoks Dawgs (AB) won their second straight Western Major Baseball League championship on August 16, winning three games out of four against the Swift Current (SK) Indians.
The final game, in Okotoks, drew a crowd of over 2,700; the Dawgs have a new ballpark, and have been drawing good crowds all year. The Dawgs continued to get excellent pitching during the final round. Mark Hardy (British Columbia) pitched a complete-game one-hitter in a 1-0 win. Jake Bottari (College of Idaho) held the Indians to one run in seven innings in another game.
Swift Current’s win was a 1-0 14-inning thriller. Sean Cooley (North Dakota; 8 1/3 innings, 6 hits) and Shawn Lee (Bellevue; 5 2/3 innings, 2 hits, eight strikeouts) combined for the shutout. Jeff Duda (Campbellsville) pitched twelve shutout innings for the Dawgs. Duda was 7-3, 1.88 ERA for the season.
