***UPDATED PHOTOS***

Portage Phillies are the provincial AA bantam baseball champions.

They scored a 6-2 victory in yesterday's final over Altona Bisons.

Team Manager Shane Moffatt says the team overcame some average play in four round-robin games, but in three games yesterday, they hit the ball well, and had great pitching. Moffatt talks about how things went in the championship game.

"Joey (Moffatt) struggled a little bit right in the first inning. He threw one away, and got up to 30 pitched right off the hop, and was going 'holy, we could be in a little bit of trouble here,' but he settled right in. Altona pitching was very good -- they throw the ball very hard. There's one thing our team does well, is hit hard stuff. We struggle with the slop and the slow stuff, but we hit the hard stuff, and that was right from top to bottom."

Moffatt says his team never quit.

"I keep telling these guys it's baseball, and you play seven innings, so you just keep playing until you're done. We had bases juiced at the end, with none out at one time. Then we got one out, and then we turned a double play. It's great for the kids, it's great for Portage, our community. We're going to go to (St. Albert) and I know last year we lost to BC in extra innings, and we're going to go and try to close the dewl this year.

Phillies' pitcher Joey Moffatt says it feels good to repeat as champions, especially going 7-and-0 through the tournament. He adds he remained confident in the championship game, even though they fell behind 2-0 early.

"I knew our bats would come through, and we have a good hitting team, and we had to work hard for it. I think it was the bottom of the order, coming through with big hits, getting on base, and the top of the order driving them home."

The Phillies will represent Manitoba at the national AA championship in St. Albert, Alberta August 19th to 21th.

Here are pictures from the championship game courtesy of Clayton Dreger.