{"id":33177,"date":"2023-06-15T20:21:14","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T00:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=33177"},"modified":"2023-06-15T20:21:16","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T00:21:16","slug":"gibbons-and-shepherd-provide-the-power-in-the-18u-titans-14-4-walloping-of-the-ontario-astros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/gibbons-and-shepherd-provide-the-power-in-the-18u-titans-14-4-walloping-of-the-ontario-astros\/","title":{"rendered":"Gibbons and Shepherd provide the power in the 18U Titans\u2019 14-4 walloping of the Ontario Astros"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First baseman Noah Gibbons and outfielder Owen Shepherd went deep to back a solid complete game performance by Jack Ferguson as the 18U Titans toppled the Ontario Astros 14-4 in a mercy-shortened CPBL game at St. Andrew\u2019s College on Saturday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the CPBL contest. Rain washed out the Mayor\u2019s first attempt to usher in the CPBL season back on May 7. It was worth the wait. Mrakas\u2019s splendid two-seam fastball spun down and away to Titans\u2019 third baseman Mitchell Crowley who presented the autographed ball to the Mayor \u2013 an ardent advocate of youth sports in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crowley is committed to play for the University of Rio Grande Red Storm in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was joined on the infield by fellow veteran Titans shortstop Nolan Thomson and centerfielder Tarek Emara who are committed to the Rend Lake College Warriors and the St. Xavier University Cougars, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All three US College commits and Head Coach Denis Bailey presented Mayor Mrakas with navy and orange Titans gear in the pre-game mound ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After bestowing gifts unto the Mayor, the home team received a few gifts of their own from the Astros. The Titans jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning in a station-to-station walk-fest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 18U squad showed great plate discipline to draw five walks, endure two hit batsmen, and Cameron Nemeth generated a solid RBI base knock en route to a bat-around inning that culminated in 12 Titans plate appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Titans\u2019 starter Jack Ferguson did not squander the gift of a half-dozen runs. The powerful righthander\u2014who will be pursuing an engineering degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax in September and suiting up for the Tigers in second year \u2013 induced a ground ball and two flyball outs at the top of the second to preserve his team\u2019s six-run margin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferguson noted the importance of that early game result after a pair of mid-week Titans\u2019 losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was important for us to get back on track. We are a good team. I knew I had to induce some strikeouts with my off-speed stuff. Today, we set the tone early and grabbed the lead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As patient as the Titans were in the bottom of the first to establish the lead to which Ferguson alluded, the 18U\u2019s revealed another dimension to their offence when Gibbons launched a three-run blast over the left-centre field fence at SAC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 390-foot bullet gave the 6\u20194\u201d first baseman 4 RBI in the first two innings and he assessed his prodigious tater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was looking to put a good swing on the ball. It felt good to hit that one and it was great that Shep hit his later to walk them off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Titans Head Coach Denis Bailey, Gibbons\u2019s second inning homer \u201cwas the turning point of the game. That shot would not have been held by many ballparks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crowley, who led off the inning with a ringing double down the third base line, and Saunders Mireault, who had drawn the team\u2019s sixth walk\u2014plated on Gibbons\u2019s four-bagger. The pesky Astros responded with two runs at the top of the third inning to cut the deficit to 9-2 when Ferguson faltered by issuing three walks, but the Titans\u2019 starter induced a hard ground ball to his steady-fielding first baseman Gibbons to quell the visitors\u2019 uprising and limit the damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mireault\u2019s timely double at the bottom of the third\u2014his second RBI of the game \u2013 pushed Thomson across the plate. Thomson, the Titans\u2019 hard-hitting, three-spot hitter from Newmarket, had reached base on a solid one-out single, stole second to get into scoring position, and scored his second run of the game on Miraeault\u2019s two-bagger to push the Titans\u2019 lead to 10-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Astros cobbled together a run at the top of the fourth by turning a rare 3-base Titans\u2019 outfield error into their third run of the game, but Ferguson struck out the last two batters of the inning to escape a jam, surrendering only one unearned run.  The unflappable Ferguson fanned a total of five Astros over his five innings of work. The visitors added one more at the top of the fifth on a ringing RBI double to cut the Titans\u2019 lead to 10-4, but the bottom of the inning featured more Titans\u2019 fireworks courtesy of Owen Shepherd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Titans\u2019 lead-off hitter Justin Fenn drew his second walk of the game, Crowley delivered his second hit and second RBI to increase his club\u2019s lead to 11-4. After Thomson popped out to the catcher for the second out of the inning, Mireault delivered another clutch hit, an RBI single, to plate Crowley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With two out and Mireault in scoring position, Shepherd belted a walk-off home run to mercy the Astros and establish the final ten-run margin of victory. Shepherd described his decisive two-RBI shot over the centerfield fence at SAC and the importance of the victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt came at a key spot.  I tried to stay loose during the at-bat. We wanted to compete out there today as a collective. It was great to finish them off because we needed a big win as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coach Bailey was pleased with Shepherd\u2019s shot and his team\u2019s bounce back effort on Saturday morning after two tough losses during the week. Bailey, whose storied coaching career has taken him to the IBL with the Kitchener Panthers, the OUA with the Laurier Golden Hawks, and the CPBL with the Toronto Mets prior to taking the reins of the Titans\u2019 big club, felt the keys to victory \u201cwere our starting pitching, good defence, and timely hitting.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pitching, defence, and hitting\u2014a timely recipe for perennial success in baseball ably demonstrated by Bailey\u2019s 18U Titans on Saturday at SAC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Stewart<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First baseman Noah Gibbons and outfielder Owen Shepherd went deep to back a solid complete game performance by Jack Ferguson as the 18U Titans toppled the Ontario Astros 14-4 in a mercy-shortened CPBL game at St. Andrew\u2019s College on Saturday morning.\u00a0 Mayor Tom Mrakas threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the CPBL contest. Rain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8D7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 09:44:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}