A walk-off steal of home to win a Nova Scotia championship – if you’ve seen that sentence in print before you’re old, really old. But that’s exactly what Ashton Hawley did on Sunday, breaking a 5-5 tie with two outs in the bottom of Sunday’s U13 A provincial championship game to lift the Port Hood Blue Jays to a 6-5 win over the Mira Road Rangers.
September 3, 2025
-by Bill Dunphy
Not even Hollywood could make this up.
The Port Hood Blue Jays were down 5-2 going into the bottom of the seventh inning of their U13 A provincial championship game against the Mira Road Rangers on Sunday in New Waterford.
But there was no doom or gloom on the Port Hood bench as Johnny Gillies led off with a base hit, followed by an eight-pitch walk by Neil MacEachern.
Brody Robinson brought in Gillies on a swinging bunt that saw him thrown out at first.
Liam MacDonald walked next and now with two outs, Ashton Hawley hit a single to centre to score both MacEachern and MacDonald and tie the game 5-5.
If that wasn’t exciting enough, what happened next was beyond belief.
Hawley, who owns three Inverness County Athletics club running records, proceeded to steal second and third.
He attempted to steal home with John A. Gillis at the plate, but a catcher’s interference call sent him back to third and Gillis to first.
With Luke Calder up next, Hawley came halfway down the third base line, daring the Mira Road catcher to make a play on him. The catcher, thinking he had pushed Hawley far enough back to third, threw the ball to his pitcher – and Hawley made his move, beating the throw to home to steal the base and give Port Hood the Nova Scotia championship.
“When I got to third I made up mind I was going to go,” said Hawley. “I was trying to go when John Angus was at bat. Then when Luke came up, I said screw it, I’m going. He (the catcher) thought he backed me up far enough and when he threw the ball to the pitcher, I just went for it.”
While that play was the ultimate highlight, there were many more that got the Jays to that point.
Calder, the starting pitcher, kept the game scoreless through the first four innings and pitched six-and-two-thirds innings. He was named player of the game for Port Hood.
“I felt good going that far into the game and had good energy. The whole thing was amazing, the atmosphere was electric,” Calder said. “This was an entire team effort.”
Henry MacDonald, the starter for Mira Road, was named his team’s player of the game.
In the first inning, the Rangers threatened to score first with a runner on third base and one out. However, a hard line drive was caught by the big first baseman and MacEachern stepped on the bag and delivered a strike to third, catching the runner off the bag for the double play to get out of the inning.
Mira Road struck first on the scoreboard, putting up two runs in the top of the fifth with one out.
Once again the defence came to the rescue, this time with a spectacular 5-3-2 double play. With a runner on third and one out, a grounder to third was scooped up by Gillis. He checked the runner back to the bag, threw a missile to first to get the batter, and MacEachern, seeing the runner on third break for home, threw to home where catcher Landon Morrell put the tag on the runner for the out.
The Blue Jays got those two runs back in the bottom of the fifth.
Gillies led the inning off with a single and MacEachern was hit by a pitch. Robinson put the ball in play and the pitcher tried to get Gillies at third but was too late with the throw, allowing Robinson to reach first.
With the bases loaded, Liam MacDonald hit a grounder to short and once again Gillies was too fast off the mark and beat the throw to home.
With the bases still loaded, Morrell scored MacEachern on a catcher’s interference call to tie the game 2-2.
After Mira Road took the 5-2 lead in the seventh, Port Hood coach Ardell Hawley had a quiet huddle with the team.
“I told them I don’t care what you have to do, get on base. Take a strike, work the count,” he said, tipping his hat to the bottom of the order that played such a significant role in the big game.
“Liam, Brody, and Neil had very little baseball experience starting out this year and there was a big gap between them and the veterans. It’s unbelievable how much that gap narrowed. We wouldn’t have won without those guys,” Hawley said.
And how his son won the game: “When Ashton slid into third, he had the most serious look on his face. When he said, ‘I’m going home,’ I didn’t say a thing. When you have speed like that, you use your assets.”
He added, “We went to this tournament with 10 players, and all 10 of them were called upon to pitch. Then in the final, every one of them reached base at least once. Now that is a team effort!”
The Blue Jays started their run at the five-team tournament with an 18-7 win over New Waterford.
Gillies threw six innings and was named Port Hood’s player of the game.
MacDonald was three-for-three at the plate and scored twice.
Calder crossed the plate three times, with Morrell, Hawley, and Blake Warcop each scoring twice.
The Jays faced the Sydney Mines Ramblers in their second game on Friday, a game that was called after five innings due to darkness and was resumed on Saturday morning, with Port Hood winning 15-9.
Brier Nadasdi hit a triple and walked to score twice, with all 10 players scoring at least one run.
Warcop, Gillis, Calder, MacEachern and Nadasdi all had a turn on the mound.
The win advanced Port Hood to the 1st vs. 2nd game against Mira Road, with the winner earning a bye into Sunday’s championship.
Tied 2-2 after two, the Blue Jays got three runs in both the third and fourth innings on the way to an 8-3 win.
Warcop and Morrell combined for the win on the mound.
Morrell also scored twice on two walks and Calder drove in the winning run with a three-run homer in the third.
The rest, as they say, is history.
