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By The Daily Gleaner

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University of New Brunswick Cougars are off to Montreal later this week to defend their Canadian Intercollegiate Baseball championship.

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The Daily Gleaner/James West Pho

to catch a thief: Saint Mary’s Huskies infielder Brandon deVarennes needs the ball to come his way first before he can apply the tag on a sliding University of New Brunswick Cougars’ Jason Snow during action in the Atlantic Intercollegiate Baseball final Saturday at Thompson Field. The Cougars defeated the Huskies 2-1 in the best-of-three final to earn a trip to the nationals this weekend in Montreal.

Cougars, who won last year's nationals held in Moncton as a wild-card entry, go into the 2008 tournament hosted by the McGill Redmen as the Atlantic champion after defeating Saint Mary's Huskies 6-0 in the third and deciding game in the league final held Sunday in Halifax.

The teams had split a pair of games at Fredericton's Thompson Field Saturday with Saint Mary's winning the first game 2-1 before UNB rallied to win the second game 4-1 and force a third game in Halifax.

Jake Waugh allowed just three hits and struck out six in yesterday's clincher. Nick Cameron led the Cougars attack with a double and two singles while Travis Gaudet and Morris Philpotts each had two singles for the winners, who had 11 hits overall.

Craig Langille started for Saint Mary's, surrendering four runs including three in the fourth inning. Justin Stephens had a double and single in a losing cause.

On Saturday, Saint Mary's needed eight innings to win the first game 2-1 with Mike Butler pitching the complete-game victory. He allowed just three hits overall, walking one and striking out four. Hard luck loser was Joel Violette who gave up just four hits. He had seven strikeouts.

The Cougars scored three runs in the first inning in Saturday's second gme and that was all they needed behind the pitching of last year's nationals hero, Peter Shaw, who allowed just five hits in going the distance.

Shaw, who pitched a pair of no-hitters at last year's nationals as UNB won its second title, had three walks and three strikeouts in besting Duncan Cronk who allowed four runs on eight hits and a walk while striking out one.

Kyle Keeping had two RBI singles to pace the UNB attack with Norris Philpotts and Jason Snow each adding a double and an RBI for the winners. Jason Smith had a solo homer and Matt Thomas a pair of singles for Saint Mary's.

UNB's first game in Montreal will be against the host McGill Redmen beginning at 2:30.

Atlantic Bapist University Mets of Moncton will also be in from the Atlantic region as one of the wild-card entries.