It was a championship weekend for Portage Pirates at the Baseball Manitoba 18U AA championships. They went through the tournament undefeated, and won the title Sunday, with a 15-5 win over Boissevain.

Coach Blaine Boyle says winning the high school championship was a factor this past weekend.

"It was a lot of the same guys. A few different faces -- we have a boy from Elie, and one from MacGregor, and couple of local guys who didn't play high school, so a lot of the same core of guys. So, we were expecting to do well, but to go undefeated, and literally, not have any really tough games at provincials, we were pretty shocked by that. the guys just played over the top."

Boyle feels this weekend's performance will help them next month, when they go to Kamloops for the Western championships. He adds they lost in the final there two years ago, but won last year.

"So we're going out there with pretty high hopes. Some of the guys have never been to Westerns, so it's going to be a great experience for a lot of them. We'll probably pick up one or two players from other teams that we're allowed to, and that should give us a real great shot at hopefully coming home with a gold again."

The Western AA Championships are from August 18th to 20th.