Swimmers second at meet

The Markham Aquatic Club made its presence felt at the 2008 East Coast Championships in Halifax after fielding a second-place finish among 32 other clubs from across Canada.

Highlighting the 33-member contingent were efforts by Breanna Saukas and Christian Ng, who placed second overall in their respective 11-12 age group categories.

Andrew Lee was fourth in the 15 and older bracket.

During the competition, Saukas, Alexandra Gunn, Hugh van Houwelingen, Alexander Alexopoulos, Rogan Kim, Lee, Mathew Stubbs and Brendan Chun recorded age group national swim times.

In doing so, they qualified to swim their events at the Age Group Nationals in Calgary next week.

The club has 20 swimmers going at this event.

Poor defence hurts Pioneers

The Markham Pioneers supplied plenty of offence when they played the Thornhill Reds Wednesday in Eastern Ontario Senior Baseball Association action at Milliken Park.

But they committed nine errors  and that resulted in an 11-8 loss.

Trailing 3-0 after a half inning, the Pioneers got two runs back in their first trip to the plate on run-scoring hits by Jesse Dynes and John Bell.

Reds pitcher Mike Masci, however, scattered the Pioneers’ hits over the remainder of the game to prevent any further big innings. He went the six innings and gave up 10 hits while striking out two batters to earn the win.

Mike Lloyd worked the first three innings for Markham and surrendered seven runs, with just two being earned, on six hits to absorb the loss.

The Pioneers are in St. Catharines this weekend to compete in the Hap Walters Tournament.

It’s a tune-up for the Senior A Elimination Tournament in Windsor on Civic Holiday weekend.

Markham’s pool play opponents are the Burlington Brants, Windsor Stars and Ajax Spartans.

Now 11-4, the Pioneers resume league play Wednesday against the Oshawa Royals at Milliken Park at 7:30 p.m.

The Royals won the 2007 Elimination Tournament and represented Ontario at the Canadian Baseball Championships in Quebec.