An extra-inning loss stopped the St. Albert Cardinals from advancing to Sunday’s final at the Western Canadian Bantam AAA Baseball Championship in Regina.
Saskatchewan 2 scored an unearned run in the bottom of the eighth to edge the Cardinals 6-5 for the right to play Manitoba 1 in the gold medal game.
“A very disappointing result to say the least,” said field manager Dave Maguire. “We played hard all weekend and came up a bit short.”
The Cardinals opened the scoring with a run in the first and the lead held up until the fifth, when Saskatchewan pushed three runs across.
In the sixth, Austin Watamaniuk doubled to lead off the inning and scored on Jackson Wark’s base hit.
In the seventh, the Cardinals scored three times to lead 5-3.
In the bottom of the inning with one out, the Cardinals were unable to turn a double play, allowing one run to score. An RBI sacrifice fly tied the game at five apiece.
In the extra inning, Saskatchewan scored the winning run on a slow roller in the infield that resulted in a throwing error.
The Cardinals left 10 runners on base.
“One or two opportunistic base hits and we could have put the game away earlier,” Maguire said. “I am proud of the boys and how they never gave up. Scoring those three runs in the top of the seventh displayed lots of character.”
The first game for the Cardinals in the pool A draw was the 12-9 victory over Manitoba 2.
Cam Mazur and Tyler Schwendeman homered, Erik Sabrowski had three hits and pickup Sean Robbins of SEEBA added two hits.
The Cardinals used five pitchers in the contest. Jakob Brinkhof recorded the win and Riley Fisher posted the save.
“The plan was to use Erik Sabrowski [starter] and Brendan Baker [pickup from Red Deer] in long relief and limit them to 50 pitches each so they would be available for Sunday’s games,” Maguire said. “Dylan Gates, Jakob and Riley gave us the pitching support we needed.”
In the second game, Matt Quartel recorded the Cardinals’ only hit in the 10-0 loss. Gates, the starting pitcher, was the victim of some shoddy defence.
Needing a win to advance into the crossover games, Baker paced the attack with four hits and Mazur drove home two runs in the 10-6 decision over Saskatchewan 1.
Wark threw five innings and gave up four hits while fanning three for the win. Fisher was almost perfect in two innings of relief, facing the minimum of six batters, while allowing one hit and starting a double play.
The Cardinals were listed as Alberta 2 in the eight-team tournament after finishing third at provincials. Alberta 1 was Spruce Grove, the provincial finalists.
The Cardinals overall record is 39-12. Last year they finished 22-12.
“It’s a credit to my coaching staff of Fred Mills, Kevin Watamaniuk and Jim Runyon for their hard work this season,” Maguire said.
