It has been three years in the making, but Belmont finally get to play their 30th straight first-grade grand final in Newcastle baseball while Toronto are eyeing a fourth consecutive premiership.
In a remarkable achievement, the Seagulls have proven to be a perennial powerhouse of the first-grade competition.
They have played in 44 first-grade grand finals since 1974, missing only the 1986 and 1990 deciders, and have won a remarkable 33 titles.
Belmont player-coach Chris Hook has been a part of "a decent amount" of those 29 grand finals since 1991 in one way or another and hopes to help guide the club to their first victory since 2016 at Boomerang Field on Sunday.
The Seagulls won nine in a row between 2008 and 2016 and were gunning for a 10th when the Tigers began their own streak.
Toronto completed a premiership triple from 2017-19. No finals have been staged for the past two years due to COVID.
"Nine straight is still an amazing achievement and we've still got this streak of being in the grand final," Hook said.
"My dad was playing and coaching in the early to mid 90s and I was the little bat boy back then, so I've been involved in a good chunk of them apart from a few years that I was overseas. It has been a while. I'm 35 this year so it almost outdates me.
"You've got to get there to have a chance so that was our No.1 objective, especially on the weekend, to get into the grand final and then we'll see what happens."
Toronto advanced directly to the grand final as minor premiers while third-placed Belmont faced second-placed White Sox in the qualifying final last weekend.
The Seagulls beat White Sox 17-9 after trailing 5-1 early.
"That definitely gives us some momentum and got us working hard in the batters box where we scored a lot of runs," Hook said.
"The last few weeks we've been a little bit sloppy in the field and we need to work on that against Toronto because they've got a really powerful batting line-up, so we can't give them the extra opportunities."
Toronto lost only one game - to the White Sox - on their way to booking their grand final appearance in what has been a disrupted season due to wet weather.
Big-hitting brothers Boss, Moko and Tehuringa Moanaroa will be key for the Tigers as well as lead-off batter and centre-field Michael Campbell plus ever-reliable pitcher Jason McAdam.
"Solid defence will set us up to minimise their runs that they put on," Toronto coach Justin Norman said.
"Our bats are normally fairly consistent so pitching and fielding, our defence, is going to be what will win us the game on the weekend."
The first pitch will be thrown at 2pm.
