Gold medals around their necks, the host Axemen are victorious

Prince George, BC – The Prince George Axeman are the 2012 Canadian Senior Men’s Baseball Champions!

Brandon Hunter’s grand slam homer in the bottom of the 4th secured the title, as the Axemen blasted the defending champion, Windsor Stars, 9-5 in front of 1015 wildly cheering fans at Citizen Field this evening.

Hunter was following up on Jesse Peters’ solo home run at the start of the inning to put the host team up 9-3 at the end of the 4th.  The Stars managed two runs at the top of the 5th, but a comeback was not in the cards.

In describing the hit after the game, Hunter says he got a good piece of a fastball down the middle, "That was huge, that was mind-blowing, I can’t explain how it felt." 

Selected Offensive Player of the tournament, Hunter says the whole experience of winning at home has left him speechless.

"This was what we tried to do," says Head Coach Jim Swanson.  "We tried to make sure we were in the hunt on the last day…if you’re going to be in the tournament as the host team, you might as well try and win it."  The last team to do so was Quebec in 2007.

"We didn’t have an easy road, we were in a tough pool, all three medal winners came from our pool, and we had to beat the defending champs twice to do this.  We did not take an easy road."

The Axemen beat Windsor 2-0 in their tournament opener on Thursday night.  Fort Saskatchewan took bronze earlier in the afternoon with a 6-5 win over Chatham.

photo below shows Hunter’s mighty whack – yes, the ball is there, beginning it’s ascent out of the park, to the right of the post