It wasn't exactly a hot August night, but Brandon Hunter was sizzling.
He kept the Queensway Auto World Red Sox dialed in to wrap up their second straight Prince George Senior Baseball League championship.
Hunter gave up just three hits in six complete innings and went 5-for-5 at the plate with two RBI in a 13-3 victory over the Inland Control and Services Tigers Friday night at Citizen Field. The Red Sox swept the Tigers in three straight games to clinch the best-of-five championship series.
"I pitched the second game of the season and went all seven [innings] and my elbow's been bugging me ever since, but we were lacking pitching this last series and I decided to give it a go," said Hunter. "I tried not to overpower it and really snap on the curveball, and it worked. I knew if we came out well, this was the last game, and we came out swinging."
A six-run second inning put the Sox on easy street. Jason McCarron opened the scoring with a single to bring in Paul Wilson from second base. Nikolaus Gantner followed up on a fielder's choice to bring home Evan Potskin, who got on with a walk, and No. 9 hitter Eric Robinson came through with an RBI single to make it 3-0.
Tigers pitcher Reg Barry then walked Jordan Patterson and hit Curtis Sawchuk with a pitch. With one out, Barry was replaced by Adam Norn, who allowed a two-run single to Hunter and a run-scoring sacrifice fly by Bucky Schmidt before the side was retired.
"We kind of put it in cruise control there and when they scored a few we answered back," said Potskin.
The Red Sox scored three more in the top of the fourth off Tigers reliever Chris Clark. Hunter showed his only signs of weakness in the bottom of the fourth, when the Tigers generated all three of their runs.
The Red Sox put a few runners on base in the fifth and got three more runs across, which put the 10-run deficit mercy rule into effect. Hunter forced James Haviland to hit into a game-ending double play in the top of the sixth inning with two men on.
Throughout the game Red Sox batters didn't go long with their hits but managed to find holes in the field and the Tigers were powerless to stop it.
"Their 3, 4, 5 and 6 hitters are really tough to get by, they're good hitters," said Clark.
"We put the guy we wanted on the bump to win it [Barry] and they got a couple weak hits that got through and kept going. They strung together some singles and got some walks and it was just unfortunate for us.
"Hunter brought it tonight, he was saving it for the final. We only had three hits and you can't win a ball game with just three hits."
