The St. Albert Senior Cardinals start their Alberta West Central Baseball Association playoff series against the Spruce Grove Eagles on Wednesday at Legion Memorial Park.
Game time is 6:45 p.m.
Game two in the best-of-three semifinal is Aug. 20 at 6:45 p.m. at Henry Singer Fields.
Game three, if needed, will be at Legion Park at a date to be confirmed.
The winner will play the first-place Westlock Red Lions (14-3) or the fourth-place Fort Saskatchewan Red Sox (7-7) in the final.
In league play the second-place Cardinals (12-3) beat the third-place Eagles (9-6) by scores of 10-3 and 6-5.
This weekend the Cardinals are hosting their annual 30-plus and 45-plus tournament at Legion park.
The 30-plus division consists of Camrose, Westlock, Stony Plain, Edmonton Heat, Slave Lake and the Cardinals.
Today in pool B the Cardinals play Westlock at 8:30 a.m. and Slave Lake at 11 a.m. The final is 4 p.m. Sunday.
Spruce Grove, Red Deer, Can-Alta and Slave Lake are competing in the 45-plus division.
Meanwhile, the AWCBA was selected to host the 2013 Canadian National Oldtimers Baseball Championships. This year’s nationals in Prince Edward Island featured 33 teams in the 35-plus, 44-plus and 50-plus divisions.
The St. Albert Cardinals improved on last year’s winless performance at provincials with two wins at the midget performance Tier I championship last weekend in Okotoks.
Ranked seventh in the 11-team draw, the Cardinals lost 8-3 to the No. 6-ranked Okotoks Dawgs White, beat the No. 10-ranked Sherwood Park Green 8-6, lost 18-0 to the No. 3-ranked Sherwood Park Gold, defeated the No. 11-ranked SEEBA 2 team 9-5 and lost 9-2 to the No. 2-ranked Okotoks Dawgs Red in the pool B round robin.
In the final Okotoks Dawgs Black defeated Sherwood Park Gold 5-2.
This year in the Norwest Midget AAA Baseball League the Cardinals placed sixth in the 11-team circuit at 15-16.
Last year the Red Birds finished ninth at 7-25 and at provincials they were shut out twice while going 0-4 in their pool.
The St. Albert Cardinals won their last game of the season at the peewee performance Tier I provincial championship last weekend in Red Deer.
The Cardinals edged the Spruce Grove White Sox 10-9 to finish 1-3 in the five-team draw. They lost 12-2 to Sherwood Park, 6-2 to SEEBA and 13-3 to Red Deer in the round robin.
Sherwood Park defeated Spruce Grove 10-3 for the provincial title.
The Cardinals entered provincials with a 5-7 record in round two of the schedule after starting the season with three wins in seven games.
The peewee AA St. Albert Cardinals are holding a bottle drive today to help raise funds for their trip to Cuba in February.
Bottles can be dropped off at the Legion Memorial Park parking lot between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The bottle drive is the first of several fundraising ventures by the Cardinals to assist in purchasing baseball equipment and school supplies for the Cuban players on similar-age teams they will play against in Varadero, Matanza and Havana.
St. Albert minor baseball teams also visited Cuba in 2004 and 2008.
