If provincials unfold like the regular season for the St. Albert Cardinals, they will slug it out against Okotoks Dawgs Black in Sunday’s final for the championship title.
Both teams are the heavyweight contenders in the bantam performance Tier I division this weekend in Okotoks.
“Every time we play them it’s exciting because we always know it’s going to be a tough game. They’re a really good team,” said Matt Quartel, catcher/shortstop for the 34-8 Cardinals.
In the June/July league schedule to determine the provincial qualifiers, the Cardinals finished 19-7 and Okotoks placed second at 18-3.
In the pre-June portion the Cardinals were undefeated in six games and Okotoks was 4-1.
The last game between the Cardinals and Okotoks was a 10-0 thumping by the Dawgs on July 14 at Legion Memorial Park. Nick Cardinal, Okotoks’ top thrower, allowed only three hits and struck-out six.
“Throughout the year they’ve been putting their best pitcher against us. We’ve had troubles against him but we’ve seen him enough times that if we face him again we’ll be able to crush him,” Quartel said.
The Cardinals also lost a June 2 doubleheader in Okotoks 5-1 and 10-8.
The first meeting of the year was an 8-5 win by the Cardinals on May 12 in Okotoks.
At provincials Friday, the Cardinals played Okotoks and the Spruce Grove White Sox but the scores were unavailable at press time.
Today at 12 p.m. the Cardinals face Okotoks Dawgs Red and Sunday they wrap up the round robin against the Fort McMurray Oil Giants at 9 a.m.
If there are no tiebreakers, the top two teams meet at 3 p.m. for the championship.
If the first place team is undefeated in the round robin and loses Sunday, a sudden-death playoff goes Monday at 10 a.m.
Visit www.baseballalberta.com for the tournament draw.
The winner advances to nationals, Aug. 23 to 27 in Vaughan, Ont.
The runner-up will represent Alberta at westerns, Aug. 16 to 20 in Regina.
“We’re all pretty pumped for provincials. We’re looking forward to perform and hopefully make it to nationals. At the beginning of the year our goal was to go to Ontario and play there,” Quartel said.
Last year the Cardinals finished 2-2 as provincial hosts and 22-12 overall.
“This year our team has meshed really well together. We have a solid group of guys and we’re all working hard together towards the same thing. We’re not worrying about our individual stats, we’re worrying about how our team does,” said Quartel, one of seven returning Cardinals on the roster.
“In the middle of the year we had a little bit of trouble with consistency but it’s kind of balanced out now,” he added.
This year’s winning record includes a 7-1 tournament showing for the St. Albert Early Bird champions and second-place finishers at Cloverdale, B.C.
“The big thing for us is pitching. It's been awesome. All of our pitchers have been great. They’ve been doing what they need to for us to be good,” said Quartel, 15.
Last weekend Quartel, Riley Fisher, Mason Libich, Cam Mazur, Tanner McLean-Poll, Erik Sabrowski and Jackson Wark represented the Cardinals on the Zone 5 Black Gold/Yellowhead team at the Alberta Summer Games in Lethbridge. Zone 5 finished a disappointing seventh out of eight zones with two wins and two losses.
“We didn’t come out the way we should’ve as a team,” said Quartel, a Grade 11 student at Edmonton Christian School.
