The Portage Pirates will represent Manitoba at the Western Canada 18U AA Baseball Championship next month in La Broquerie.

The Pirates defeated the Winker Diamond Dogs 7-1 in the final of the Provincial Championship Sunday at Access Field in Altona.

Kyle Devos got the win as he went all seven innings and allowed just three hits and struck out eight.

“Our crew is pretty resilient,” said Portage coach Shane Moffatt who watched his ballclub down the host Altona Bisons 7-2 earlier in the day in the semifinals. “They’ve been here, done it and they don’t quit. We got good pitching today and our guys came through on the bats. It’s a special day for all of them.”

The Diamond Dogs held on to a 1-0 lead until the Pirates pushed a run across in the bottom of the fifth inning.

The floodgates opened in the sixth as six Portage hits, a wild pitch and two Winkler errors resulted in a six-run inning and a 7-1 Pirates advantage.

“The past couple of games we’ve been down real early.” said Pirates third baseman Kyle Van Deynze who drove in a pair of runs with a bases loaded single in the sixth. “We haven’t been getting the runs and we just pick up on the one rally inning. It really helps us out in these games.”

Portage won five straight games to claim the championship banner while the loss to to the Pirates was the Diamond Dogs only blemish of the provincials.

“The kids battled hard and played hard all weekend,” Winkler coach Jeremy Matuszewski said. “Portage never quits. We knew we were going to be in for a battle and it was tight. For five innings we were right there and in the sixth a couple of plays didn’t go our way. That’s baseball.”

It was a tough afternoon defensively for the Diamond Dogs who committed four errors in the final.

“You want to have a clean game all the time but I don’t fault the kids,” said coach Matuszewski. “They worked their hearts out all weekend. We wanted Portage...we got Portage...they got us.”

The Pirates recorded a 2-2 round robin record at the Western’s last year in Kamloops and missed out on playing in the final because of a tiebreaker.

“I think we’re going to be right there with this squad,” said coach Moffatt. “Probably going to pick up a couple of pitchers if they’ll come with us. There are two or three of them out there that throw real well and we’re not real deep with real solid pitching. Our pitching is good but when you get to that calibre, you want some quality guys. I think our positional players and our sticks will carry us through and we’re looking forward to representing Manitoba.”

The Western Canada 13U, 15U & 18U AA Baseball Championships take place August 16-19 in La Broquerie.