St. Croix, NS - - Galway Hitmen reclaim gold at Canadian Fastpitch Championships
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    Competition got heated with N.L. Hitmen and B.C. Loggers players, staff rushing onto field
The Galway Hitmen reclaimed their national championship this weekend, at the 2018 Canadian Senior Men's Fastpitch Championships in St. Croix, N.S. (Submitted)
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St. John's team the Galway Hitmen took home the gold medal at the 2018 Senior and Master Men's Fast Pitch Canadian Championship this weekend.
The national championship game was Sunday afternoon in St. Croix, N.S., against B.C. team the Sooke Loggers.
They won the final game with a 8-0 five-inning win over the Loggers.
St. John's player Ryan Boland, from Goulds, hit a grand-slam in the finals, and was named the MVP of the game.
The bronze-medal team was the Elmira Expos, from Ontario.
The Hitmen, owned by former premier Danny Williams, were the first-place team in the league for five consecutive years, but lost in 2017. This win means the Hitmen are reclaiming their championship title.
There was some drama at the weekend-long competition, though.
A video posted on Twitter shows what one viewer called a "brouhaha" in St. Croix on Saturday night, when the Hitmen played the Loggers and won 7-0.
The guys are playing hard and I'm glad cooler heads came around.- Mike Branchaud
Players, coaches and staff from both teams can be seen running onto the field after a runner slides into home base and collides with the pitcher.
It's not an uncommon occurrence when the stakes are so high, said Mike Branchaud, a manager with Softball Canada.
"It happens a lot in the sport of softball or baseball where there's little incidents on the field," said Branchaud.
"You don't like to see them, but it usually happens at a level where there's a lot at stake, which was the winner of this was guaranteed to go to the gold medal game. The guys are playing hard and I'm glad cooler heads came around."
Some players were ejected from the Saturday night game, he said, but the rest of the game proceeded as normal.
Softball Canada officials will review the incident, though, to determine if there is any need for disciplinary actions, but Branchaud said he doesn't suspect supplemental discipline.
"We review incidents like this and we try to make sure that our game is safe, we try to promote our game," he said.
"We don't condone any actions such as this and we always review situations and what we want to see and what we don't want to see in our game. We don't want to see any issues such as this in our game."
Branchaud expects the report will be finished within a week.
