By Staff
August 24th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The 99th IBL league final kicks off Thursday night at Coates Park in Barrie as the pennant-winning Baycats play host to the second-place Kitchener Panthers.
The Baycats set a number of records en route to their sixth first-place finish since 2001.
They started the season 26-0 to set a record for most wins to open a season, they went 33-3 for the best winning percentage (.917) in league history and tied the record for the most wins. They are also very tough at home, going 18-0.
Looks like the ball and the bat are going to click.
Kitchener Panthers are no slouch either and this is truly the marquee match-up for the IBL.
The Panthers cruised to a second-place finish with a 28-8 record, three wins better than the third-place London Majors. The Panthers were pushed to six games by the Hamilton Cardinals in the first round of the playoffs but had little trouble with the Majors, going just five games in the semifinals.
The Panthers also finished the regular season with an 8-2 run and are 8-3 in the post-season.
Both teams have some serious star power.
Ryan Spataro hit .447 to lead the Baycats while Kevin Atkinson was third in the league in RBI.
On the mound, Claudio Custodio had the league’s lowest ERA at 2.29 and had six wins. Emillis Guerrero led the league in both wins and strikeouts with nine and 80 and hasn’t given up a run in the playoffs.
Kitchener’s Sean Reilly posted perhaps the best single-season performance in league history. He led the league in batting average at .447. He also led the IBL in home runs with 19, which was 11 more than the three players who were next at eight and just two fewer than his own league record of 21 in 2013.
He also had a stunning 56 RBI, which was 16 more than Barrie’s Jordan Castaldo. and just four off his own league record.
He is just the third player to win the IBL Triple Crown and the only player to do it twice (2015.) Noel Entenza, a right-hander from Cuba, led the Panthers on the mound with seven wins and Jasvir Rakkar has three wins in the playoffs and a league-leading 32 strikeouts and 2.60 ERA.
Game one Thursday night is a 7:30 p.m. in Barrie.
Game two is Saturday night in Kitchener at 7 p.m.
Game three Sunday, another 7 p.m. start in Barrie.
Game four is in Kitchener on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.;
Game five is in Barrie on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.;
Game six is scheduled for Kitchener on Saturday, Sept. 2 at 7 p.m.
Game seven would be in Barrie on Sunday, Sept. 3, also at 7 p.m.
This could well be a four game playoff series.
Barrie is going for its fourth straight championship while Kitchener has not won the championship since 2001.
While the Burlington Herd didn’t do very well – it has been a very exciting baseball season for the IBL.
They go into their 100th year in 2018 – as auspicious as that occasion will be – it is going to be tough to come up with some of the really breath taking games seen during the 2017
