Belmore Stingers end six-year championship run for Brussels Tigers with HCFL tournament win

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

For the first time in seven years, the Huron County Fastball League champions are not the hometown Brussels Tigers. The Belmore Stingers claimed victory in Mitchell over the weekend, capping off a tremendous year in which the team lost just one game over the course of its 20-game season.

 

The Mitchell Mets hosted the league’s annual year-end tournament, with the action going down at Keterson Park, beginning on Friday night and wrapping up on Sunday afternoon.

 

The Stingers did not waltz their way to the title. They faced a hard-fought battle with the host Mitchell Mets in the final, that ended with a 6-5 win for the Stingers to claim the title. This came after the Mets lost their opening game, the first game of the tournament, to the Milverton Millwrights on Friday night by a score of 9-8.

 

After that loss, the Mets would win every game that was put in front of them until the finals, losing a heartbreaker to the Stingers.
Also on the opening night of the tournament, the sixth-ranked Goderich Grizzlies beat the 11th-ranked Walton Brewers by a score of 5-4 and the Elmira U20 Expos, ranked eighth, beat the ninth-ranked Brussels Bangers by a score of 4-0 in the first trio of Friday night games alongside the Millwrights’ 9-8 win over the Mets.

 

The second pair of games that night saw the fourth-ranked Monkton Muskrats beat the 13th-ranked Wroxeter Rippers by a score of 10-3 and the Brussels Tigers, ranked fifth, beat the 12th-ranked Fullarton A’s by a score of 8-6.

 

The next day, the second-ranked Wingham Hitmen, thanks to a first-round bye, played their first game of the tournament, beating the Milverton Millwrights by a score of 5-3. The third-ranked Sebringville Sting also benefitted from a first-round bye and beat the Goderich Grizzlies by a 7-0 score Saturday morning. 

 

Eventual tournament winners the Belmore Stingers squeaked past the Elmira U20 Expos after their first-round bye, as the top-ranked team entering the tournament, beating the Expos by a score of 5-4.

 

In the one-loss bracket, the Fullarton A’s would end the Wroxeter Rippers’ tournament on Saturday afternoon, while, in the undefeated bracket, the Brussels Tigers beat the Monkton Muskrats, though scores for those games were unavailable.
Again in the one-loss bracket, the Mitchell Mets stayed alive with a 3-0 victory over the Elmira U20 Expos and the Brussels Bangers beat the Milverton Millwrights and the Goderich Grizzlies fell to the Fullarton A’s, though scores for those games were unavailable. The Walton Brewers shutout the Monkton Muskrats by a score of 9-0, sending them home. 

 

Then, action continued in the undefeated bracket, with the Sebringville Sting punching their ticket to the next round with a 3-1 win over the Wingham Hitmen, while the Brussels Tigers fell to the Belmore Stingers by a score of 2-0, setting up a semi-final contest between the Sting and the Stingers that would go Belmore’s way, propelling them to the championship game and awaiting an opponent.

 

As action in the one-loss bracket continued, the Mitchell Mets sent the Walton Brewers packing by a score of 7-2. This is the third year in a row that the Mets have eliminated the Brewers in the league’s year-end tournament.

 

On Sunday morning, in the one-loss bracket, the Tigers beat the Bangers in the “Battle of Brussels”, while the Mitchell Mets beat the Wingham Hitmen to move on, though scores for those games were unavailable.

 

Then, the Mitchell Mets beat the Brussels Tigers in the one-loss bracket by a score of 3-1, meaning there would be a new league champion for the first time in years.

 

In the final one-loss bracket game of the tournament, the Mitchell Mets beat the Sebringville Sting by a score of 9-4 with the home team earning its spot in the championship game with the awaiting Belmore Stingers.

 

Then, the Stingers did not need two games to win the championship, defeating the Mitchell Mets by a score of 6-5 in the final game and earning the title of Huron County Fastball League champions. 

 

This is the first time that the Stingers have won the title since 2012 when they beat the Walton Brewers in the final to win the championship. Before that, it was exactly 20 years earlier that the then-Belmore Junior Stingers won Huron County Fastball League gold in 2004.

 

And while the Stingers have now won the title for their third time since the late 1980s, they had made it to the finals several times recently, but had always been dispatched by the juggernaut Brussels Tigers, who beat them in the truncated season of 2021 and in 2019 as well.