The North East’s best baseball talent walked away with the division two title at the State Winter Championships in Geelong over the long weekend.
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It was the local association’s first Victorian title since 2006 and they won it in thrilling fashion against La Trobe in the decider.
Trailing 3-6 with one inning to play, North East put five rounds on the board to steal an unlikely 8-6 victory.
North East coach Ed Simmons said the result had been a long time coming.
“They were leading all day, it was 3-0 nil and we got back and made it 3-3, then they scored three more and made it 6-3,” Simmons said.
“We got to the stage where it was the last inning because it started to rain and the umpire said he’d call it after the inning.
“Our first two batters had safe hits, so we had second and third occupied and then another guy came in and scored two and we had another runner on.
“We then had two outs in a row with the tying run on base and (Wangaratta’s) Bryan Wilson hit one down the third base line over the fence to score two and put us in front 7-6.
“We got another runner on and scored him as well, so we ended up winning 8-6.
“It was a really, really good game.”
North East qualified for the final with a dominant display over Bendigo in the playoff, winning 15-0 in five innings.
Bryan Wilson, Brendan Simmons, Greg Daniel, Tom Simmons, Scott Jenkins, Doug Maddison, Heath Anders, Jackson Wright, Nathan Pool, Mark Taylor, Tom Clough and Rob Seymour made up the winning team.