The Moose Jaw Miller Express are the East Division champions of the Western Canadian Baseball League. The Express defeated the host Saskatoon Berries 5-3 in the third and deciding game of the east championship in front of 1,811 fans on Tuesday at NexGen Patch at Cairns Field in Saskatoon.

Moose Jaw move on to the WCBL championship series against the two-time defending champion Okotoks Dawgs, who defeated the Sylvan Lake Gulls 10-4 in the third game of the West Division championship.

Express starter Westin Walls was a major difference maker as he pitched a complete game with nine hits allowed while striking out 11 and only giving up one walk and two earned runs in just his fourth start this season. He seemed to improve as the game went along, striking out five in the final four innings, including Berries center fielder Carter Beck, for the final out of the game.

“He pitched a great game,” said Berries head coach Joe Carnahan.

“You tip your hat to him. We had a couple situations where we could have pushed one across and he made some big pitches and we didn’t. That was the difference.”

Walls is 2-0 in two starts for the Express in the playoffs with 15 strikeouts in 14 innings and a 3.85 ERA.

The Express got on the board first with a 3-run second inning home run for left fielder Joe Osborn off Carter Kopp, who was making his first start of the season for the Berries.

The Berries got two runs back in the fourth before Osborn added his fourth RBI of the game on a single in the fifth to make it 4-2 Express. Beck scored in the bottom of the fourth for the Berries on a double play groundout by Ethan Menard.

Elijah Bear rounded out the scoring with a sacrifice fly in the 7th to make it 5-3 for Moose Jaw. Saskatoon got two runners on in the bottom of the 7th, but couldn’t cash them in. That was as close as they came to scoring the rest of the way. Walls retired the side in order in the bottom of the 9th to finish off the win.

Second baseman Nate Houston led the Express with four hits, including a 7th inning triple. He leads the club throughout the playoffs with nine hits and a .500 batting average. He is third on the club with four RBIs, trailing only first baseman Austin Gurney, who has seven and Osborn with five.

Leading the Berries, and all batters throughout the playoffs, was Beck who had 17 hits and a .607 batting average. In Game 1, Beck had the first cycle in Berries franchise history.

The third game was by far the closest of the series with the Berries winning in a 14-1 Game 1 route in Saskatoon on Sunday. The Miller Express returned the favor with a 17-6 win in Game 2 in Moose Jaw on Monday to set up the third and deciding game.

The Miller Express, who are in search of their first WCBL championship since 2002, will travel to Okotoks for Game 1 of the championship series on Thursday. Game 2 will be played in Moose Jaw on Friday. If a third and deciding game is necessary, both teams will return to Okotoks on Saturday to decide the championship.

(Don Rice is a journalist with the Saskatoon StarPhoenix newspaper. This article has been use with his permission).