The St. Albert Cardinals are going places as the No. 1-ranked 13U AAA team in the province.
A victory in tonight’s 6 p.m. semifinal against the Okotoks Dawgs or Calgary Dinos in round two of the Baseball Alberta Tier I tournament at Red Deer would extend the season for the 30-5 Cardinals.
“We have a very good opportunity to go to Quebec where nationals are and even if we don’t make it there we can hopefully go to B.C. for westerns in Surrey so it’s very exciting,” said centre-fielder Nicholas Vandenberg at Wednesday’s practice at Legion Memorial Park.
The provincial champion advances to the Aug. 22 to 25 nationals at Repentigny, Que., and the runner-up will join the third-place winner at westerns, Aug.15 to 18 at Cloverdale, B.C.
The last St. Albert Minor Baseball Association team to qualify for the 13U nationals was the 2014 Cardinals, the fourth-place finishers.
“We have an exceptional team this year and some exceptional kids and I think we can go all the way to nationals,” said Vandenberg, one of seven returnees from last year’s silver medallists at provincials and westerns.
The 26-8 record for the 2018 Cardinals in league, provincial and western action included losses of 12-1 to the Parkland Twins in the provincial final and 7-3 to the undefeated B.C.team in the western final.
“Last year it gave us a lot of experience to deal with the stress and to deal with all the competition because we obviously faced really good teams in the finals and we will again this weekend,” Vandenberg said. “It helped a lot.”
Nothing seems to faze the Cardinals, according to head coach Travis Parker.
“Our team can handle the pressure. The players know they’re never out of any baseball game,” Parker said. “They have a comfort level in situations that they can deal with the adversity like that game in our round robin this past weekend where we were down 7-0 to Calgary. That would send a lot of teams into the dumps, but we just went out and put up 19 runs.”
The 21-9 result against the Calgary Dinos was the highest-scoring game for the Cardinals in four pool A wins at Red Deer. The rest of the scores were 20-0 against Fort McMurray Oil Giants, 10-0 against Edmonton Padres and 14-1 against Parkland.
“The key for us was to come out strong in the first inning. We’ve struggled with that a little bit in the last weekend of regular season, but we did that excellently at provincials,” said Vandenberg, noting the Calgary contest “was a really good game,” but the best of the bunch was against the Padres. “We all really wanted to win that game and we played really hard.”
The Red Deer Braves were the top pool B team last weekend and will face the Padres or Edmonton Expos in today’s 3 p.m. semifinal.
The Cardinals (26-5), Okotoks (22-3) and Red Deer (20-9) led the way in the Baseball Alberta 13U AAA League.
Okotoks, a perennial provincial contender, also beat the Cardinals in three out of four games this season, including 5-0 and 6-3 outcomes in a weekend series in late June at St. Albert.
“They have one really good pitcher and they’re a very good hitting team that can drive the ball really hard but, if we play them, I’m confident we can come out on top this weekend,” Vandenberg said.
This year Baseball Alberta adopted a two weekend format for the 13U AAA Tier I provincials instead of the traditional one weekend tournament.
“I would’ve preferred not to do that and the reason is because I think it doesn't benefit the teams like ourselves who have a lot of pitching depth because the first weekend of round robin teams can squeak by and get through to the second round. Then, if you’ve got a couple of real solid pitchers, all of a sudden you win the semi and all of a sudden you're in the final, and it may not show the true depth of what a team has,” said Parker.
The SAMBA technical director described the Cardinals as well versed in all aspects of the games.
“I for sure have 13 kids who I’m comfortable in any setting,” Parker said. “I have arguably 13 kids I would feel comfortable throwing off the mound. We have incredible pitching.
“The difference this year is one through 13 crush the baseball. Our bats have been unbelievable. I think we're averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of 12, 13 runs for a game and three or four against a game,” said the team’s second-year dugout boss. “When you combine our defence that is incredible, our pitching and then we're putting up big runs, teams are struggling trying to play against us.”
An exceptional defence is what makes the Cardinals so good, according to Vandenberg, 13.
“I can confidently say we probably have had the best defence in the league for the whole season,” said the Grade 8 William D. Cuts School student. “Our pitching is fantastic and when teams get good hits our team can make the exceptional plays along with the regular ones constantly.”
