Carillon Sultans win bronze at national championship

The Carillon Sultans took home bronze while representing Manitoba at the 22U National Baseball Championship.

The Steinbach-based team defeated an Ontario squad in a nail-biting 7-6 win. The team finished the tournament, which was hosted in Dartmouth, N.S., with five wins and one loss. Ontario’s other team won gold, after beating Nova Scotia 2-0.

Sultans Head Coach Rick Penner, who’s coached the team for three years, said while bronze wasn’t the medal colour the team was hoping for, he’s proud of how the team rallied to get the win. This is the best result the team has had since he started coaching, Penner said.

“Throughout that bronze medal game the emotions kept building. We just felt like we’re going home with something here,” he said. “We’re not going to let this slow and slip us by.”

The team won the game with a late walk-off home run at the bottom of the ninth inning, after battling through two extra innings because Ontario tied the score in the seventh.

“The second he hit it, we sent that runner home. The guys at the edge of the dugout were running out there because they knew that was enough to cash in on that run,” Penner said.

He sees the walk off as an “amazing” end to the season and reward for the hard work the players put in during the tournament.

“We played as good as anybody in this tournament if not better than most of them. So it was just an amazing weekend,” he said.