Aigles win Miramichi Valley baseball title

Tracadie ends 26-year championship drought; wins 31-run, 31-hit Game 4 slugfest

The Tracadie Aigles are this year’s Miramichi Valley Baseball League champions. (FREE PRESS PHOTO)

MIRAMICHI • For the first time since 1998, the Tracadie Aigles have won a Miramichi Valley Baseball League championship.

The Aigles rallied for 12 runs in the sixth and seventh innings before hundreds of diehard fans on Tuesday night at Memorial Field, overcoming a five-run deficit and beating the Newcastle Mike’s Bar and Grill Cardinals 19-12 in Game 4 of the best-of-seven intermediate A league final.

With the win, the Aigles swept the series and earned the higher seed of the two Miramichi Valley teams heading to provincials from Sept. 6 to 8 in Saint John. Their opponents include the Capital City Intermediate Baseball League champion Woodstock Shiretowners, the runner-up Fredericton Launchpad Sports Expos, and the Southern New Brunswick Baseball League’s Dieppe Cardinals and Saint John Mariners.

Tracadie’s triumph also marked the first time since 2016 that a local team hasn’t won the Miramichi Valley league title. The past six championships have been split between the Cardinals and Chatham Head Tigers, who lost to Newcastle in seven games in this year’s league semifinals.

The Cardinals won the league in 2017, 2018, and 2022. The Tigers prevailed in 2019, 2021 and 2023. The league was sidelined in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.