Silver turned into gold for St. Albert Cardinals Red in Sunday’s rematch with the Oak River Bearcats at the U18 midget AA westerns.
The 2015 runner-up turned the tables on the defending champions from Manitoba in the deciding 5-3 contest at Legion Memorial Park.
The 50th victory in 57 games was beyond belief for the triumphant Cardinals.
“We’ve all been together for almost three years so it was a great ending to a great moment in all of our lives,” said a delighted Jake Enright, the third baseman and one of nine returning players from the 7-1 loss to the Bearcats in last year’s championship in St. Albert.
“It’s awesome,” chimed in right-fielder Rossi Cammarata. “I’ve been with these guys for probably four years and we’ve been working hard and getting better every day and we finally got to the top and won westerns. We lost last year to these guys and to finally take it to them feels amazing.”
Both years the Cardinals lost their round-robin game to the Bearcats on day one at westerns and Friday’s score was a mercy-rule 11-0 drubbing.
“Confidence factored into it a little bit. They had beaten us pretty well but we knew we had it inside ourselves and coming into this game that kind of motivated everybody to do a little bit better and it definitely worked out for us,” Enright explained.
“We just had so much more hype today,” Cammarata added. “It was the pitching and we were on the sticks. We felt like we had it in us. The last game against them we felt like we were going to lose and today we just brought it to them.”
The TSN turning point, according to Cammarata, was the first inning when captain Nate Brisson led off with a walk, reached second when the infielder didn’t touch the bag on a double-play attempt and eventually scored from third on a balk.
“When we got that first run it just sparked everyone on the bench,” Cammarata said.
The Bearcats tied it in the bottom of the first when the second batter tripled and scored off a sac fly on a close play at the plate.
Starting pitcher Eric Pankiw got out of the inning with a runner on base and in the second the Bearcats loaded the bases with three walks before flying out for the third out.
In the third, the Cardinals went 1-2-3 for the second-straight inning and the Bearcats left two men on base with a grounder for the third out.
The Cardinals got rolling in the fourth on a deep poke past the centre-fielder by Dylan Wood, a pickup from the Leduc Giants who batted third and played shortstop in the final, for a triple to lead off the inning.
With one out the Cardinals pulled off the play of the game as Enright executed a clutch squeeze bunt to score the speedy Wood, who was only a few strides from reaching home when Enright smartly tapped the bat down the first-base line against the surprised-looking Bearcats.
“I get called for suicide bunts every now and then and it’s always nerve-wracking. You never get used to it,” Enright said. “I was nervous definitely but I’ve been practicing my bunts all year and I was very happy to see it finally pay off.”
His dad, bench boss Jason Enright, could sense destiny was within reach for the back-to-back Baseball Alberta Tier I champions after the go-ahead run.
“Once we got that squeeze in I had a good feeling,” said coach Enright. “It gave us momentum. We felt like we made a major league play.”
The next batter, Callum McEwen, stroked a triple and made it 3-1 on Cammarata’s RBI single with two out.
The Bearcats loaded the bases in their next at bat and with two out Pankiw, who had thrown 73 pitches, including 24 in the second and 17 in the fourth, was replaced by Koby Adams, a pickup from the Barrhead Orioles. His second pitch was a ground-ball out to end the inning.
“First of all, coming in as a call-up is unbelievable because I didn’t expect much playing time but to come in with bases loaded was unreal,” said Adams, who retired the side in order in the fifth and stranded a runner in the sixth.
In the seventh, Cammarata uncorked a screamer down the third-base line for a double and advanced to third as the next batter, Logan Blumhagen, hit a hard smash that the first baseman bobbled while fielding the ball and the pitcher was late getting to the bag for the throw. Cammarata scored when the first pitch to Ben Grabia wound up at the backstop and Blumhagen raced to third.
“It felt pretty good to get that hit. It was probably my last at-bat ever on this diamond so I just wanted to give it my all,” said Cammarata, 17.
The Cardinals padded their lead on Grabia’s sac fly to score Blumhagen.
With three outs to go, things got a little dicey as the Bearcats started to rally down by four runs. A one-out triple resulted in the second run off a wild pitch. The next batted singled, followed by a play at first base as the hitter was safe on a solid hit that Enright knocked down at third and his throw was a tad high to Blumhagen at first.
After the next batter struck-out, the Bearcats singled home their third run as the ball skipped under Brisson’s glove near second base.
With two out, and the anxious Cardinals on their feet in the dugout and the fans clapping and cheering for the home team to prevail, Adams sealed the deal with a strikeout on the fourth pitch to the hitter, his 24th of the inning and 49 overall.
“We started counting down at nine outs and then six and then we got to three and then we got the first batter out and I started to calm down a little bit. But then with two runners on I started breathing heavy and I started to feel myself shake and sweat, but I just powered through. I knew that my team defence behind me was going to help me out and I just started throwing strikes,” said Adams, 18, the player of the game for the Cardinals.
“It’s surreal. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s the best feeling ever,” said the lanky righty with the rock-star hair of the award. “My outside fastball was right on the black and it was working wonders. I was able to get strikes early, no walks, limited them to ground balls mostly and my defence helped me out a lot.”
The post-game jubilation summed up the emotion oozing from the Cardinals.
“It was great to see we all came together like this for one final game as a group,” said Enright, 17.
