The St. Albert Cardinals are on the rise in the Norwest Midget AAA Baseball League with their fastest start in years.
Five wins in six games lifted the Red Birds into contender status for provincials.
“We’re probably one of the top teams in the league,” said right-fielder Tyler Mecir, a third-year Cardinal. “We can contend with anyone if we’re playing our best. Hopefully we go far. It should be fun.”
Field manager C.J. Jayasekera is popping buttons over the dramatic turnaround from last year, a sixth-place 15-16 league record and 2-3 performance at the performance Tier I provincials.
“We definitely have to be impressed in the way we’ve gone about it so far,” Jayasekera said. “It’s still the early part of the year and we have a lot of room for improvement but we’re very excited about the positive start.”
To put it into perspective, during Jayasekera’s coaching debut in 2011 the Cardinals posted only seven victories and lost 25 and were winless at provincials.
“The first year was really bad,” Mecir said. “It’s really nice to get off to a good start finally. We’re playing pretty solid so far.”
Mecir, 17, is among seven returning Cardinals on a 17-man roster that includes six graduates of the St. Albert bantam AAA program.
“We’ve got a couple of strong guys coming up but everybody seems to be pulling their weight and doing their job this year so far,” said the Grade 12 St. Albert Catholic High School student.
The Cardinals are a dedicated group playing with pride after some players pulled the chute last year and didn’t finish the season.
“These kids have come here with the drive and the commitment to wanting to be better. They’ve actually put in some time prior to this. It’s not just an overnight thing,” Jayasekera said.
The Cardinals have put all three phases of the game together for an early jump on the season.
“We’ve got our pitching down pretty good. Our team is really hitting good and it’s hitting that wins you games mostly. We’ve got good defence too. We’re making the routine plays, which again wins you games,” said Mecir, who is batting .286 with four RBIs, four runs scored and a team-high seven walks.
The Cardinals have also played with the lead in their wins.
“When you get a couple of runs early then your defence will hold those runs for you and then you can tack on some more runs,” Mecir said.
The only snafu was last Saturday’s 5-3 loss to SEEBA 1 in the second game of a doubleheader at Legion Memorial Park.
“It was close. We were pretty neck and neck, it was just one bad inning that gave it away for us,” Mecir said.
It was 2-1 Cardinals after four innings, but in the bottom of the sixth SEEBA pushed four runs across with two outs to lead by three. SEEBA finished the inning with four hits, left two on base and the Cardinals committed one error.
“In the other games we found ourselves in a position where we got ahead and we stayed ahead, whereas we were kind of tested in the sense in terms of our defence,” Jayasekera said. “That game was well pitched and it came down to just one little out. It was basically lost on that half inning.”
Starting pitcher Connor Burns went the distance in striking-out six and walking two while surrendering nine hits and four earned runs.
“He pitched a fantastic game,” Jayasekera said.
In the twinbill opener the Cardinals celebrated a rare win against SEEBA 1 (3-3), as Mecir drove in two runs and starting pitcher Tanner Karpinski gave up one run on five hits and fanned two over four innings in the 4-1 decision. SEEBA outhit the Cardinals 7-3, but committed four errors.
“The past couple of years we’ve had struggles against them,” Jayasekera said.
“However, with every failure it seems there is a silver lining and an opportunity to improve.”
The Cardinals are up to bat Wednesday against SEEBA 2 (5-5) at 6:30 p.m. at John Fry Park. The teams played last Sunday in Edmonton and Karpinski batted 3-for-4 during a 12-hit attack in the 11-2 win.
Thursday the Cardinals visit the Sherwood Park Dukes (5-2) at 6:30 p.m.
FOUL BALLS: Gray Symington is hitting a sizzling .474 and is the team leader in hits (nine), doubles (three), triples (two) and RBIs (six) in 19 at-bats.
Karpinski is 2-0 with a nifty 1.00 ERA and six strikeouts in eight innings.
Jackson Wark has struck out a team-high 10 batters in eight innings.
Several Cardinals were in Atlanta this week with the Prospects Academy team.
