The St. Albert Cardinals are confident they can still play with the best of the best after they got swept by the first-place Calgary Dinos in the Norwest Midget AAA Baseball League.
The Red Birds believe the 5-0 and 12-4 losses last Saturday in Calgary didn’t reflect how well they performed against the 16-1 Dinos.
“The first game we battled hard, we just hit the ball right at them,” said third baseman/pitcher Connor Burns. “The second game it was actually 6-4 and just one inning kind of blew up on us. We battled hard but we just didn't get the result.”
In the opener the Dinos out-hit the Cardinals 5-3 and struck-out five. The home team scored twice in the first and three times in the third. Both sides committed one error.
Starting pitcher Jackson Wark was tagged for five runs, three earned, on three hits and five walks while fanning four in 5-1/3 innings. Erik Sabrowski worked in relief.
In the rematch the Dinos pushed four runs across in the third to lead 6-2 before pulling away with three in both the fifth and sixth. Hits were 10-4 for the Dinos. The Cardinals committed four errors and the Dinos were charged with two.
Sabrowski lasted 4-1/3 innings after giving up eight runs, five earned, on five hits and five walks while striking-out four. Aaron Watamaniuk and Jared Roddelt took turns in relief.
“We stuck with them pretty well throughout both games. We hit a lot of balls hard, they were just right at people and lineouts. Defence made nice plays and all the plays they should have. We just made a couple of errors and that's what cost us,” said middle infielder/pitcher Mat Brisson.
The twinbill marked the first clash of the season against the runaway leaders in the Norwest standings.
“There wasn't really any pressure on us. They’re first in the league so they had to kind of stand up for themselves,” said Brisson, 16, a Grade 11 St. Albert Catholic High School student.
The next day the Cardinals rebounded to beat the last-place Red Deer Braves 5-3 and 7-3 at Great Chief Park.
Gray Symington batted 4-for-4 with two doubles, two RBIs and scored twice in game one.
Tanner Karpinski twirled a five-hitter while going the distance. He struck-out eight and walked four.
In game two Triffon Tatarin belted the team’s first home run in league play. He finished with two RBIs and three runs scored.
Burns and Brisson added two hits apiece. Burns and Symington also drove in two runs.
Alex Marthiensen scattered four hits over 6-2/3 innings and fanned six and walked four.
“We didn't lose confidence (after the losses in Calgary), we just went out there and did the same thing and end up getting results. We hit the ball hard, had really good pitching and we just took it to them,” said Burns, 16, a Grade 11 Bellerose Composite High School student.
After sweeping the Braves (2-11), the Cardinals are 3-6 in their last nine games and 9-7 overall for sixth place.
“We’ve had a lot tougher teams in the last week and a half coming at us and all the losses we’ve had are by one or two runs so we’re sticking with the best in the league,” Brisson said. “When it comes down to provincials at the end of the year, anybody can really take it and I think we have a good shot at not only making it to the final but beating everybody else there.”
Burns stressed the Cardinals are more concerned about peaking for provincials in August than the recent wave of losses.
“It doesn’t really matter right now because it’s early in the season but we would’ve like to have won those games. We lost twice in extra innings (to SEEBA 1) and they were both definitely winnable games,” he said.
The Cardinals are on pace to surpass last year’s 15-win total with 13 games left in the Norwest schedule.
“You can’t really compare last year to this year. We have a lot better players, a lot more talent. We’re just generally better in every aspect of the game,” said Brisson, one of seven returnees from last year’s sixth-place team and winners of two games at provincials as the seventh seed in the 11-team draw.
This weekend the Cardinals are competing in their second tournament of the season, the 10th annual Peter DeVries Invitational at John Fry Park. Thursday the Cardinals won their first game 10-9 over Spruce Grove White Sox 1, the same team they blanked 2-0 in the semifinals of the recent Medicine Hat tournament on the strength of Wark’s complete game four-hit, six strike-out gem.
“That was a big measuring stick because they’re up there with some of the better teams in the league and they have some of the best pitching too,” Brisson said.
The Cardinals lost the final to the host Monarchs 8-0, who the Red Birds struggled to get a hit off in the tournament-opening 4-0 loss.
The Cardinals also edged the Calgary Blues 7-6 on Sabrowski’s walk-off hit to score Karpinski and shut out the Regina Wolfpack 9-0. Karpinski’s no-hit bid ended with a ground ball through the infield with one out in the seventh. He racked up nine strikeouts and walked one.
“We had our starters go at least five innings in that tournament, and two of them had complete games, and that's huge for us because it gives us a chance to win,” Burns said.
Today the Cardinals play SEEBA 1 at 9 a.m. and the St. Albert Junior Cardinals at 6 p.m.
Sunday the semifinals are 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and final is 3:30 p.m.
“We’re going straight forward to try and win it just like Medicine Hat. We went in there to beat everybody we can,” Brisson said. “We’re also playing teams from around here so we’ll see more pitching on their teams, which will help us in provincials.”
