The St. Albert Cardinals have home field advantage this weekend during the Baseball Alberta bantam performance Tier I championship at Legion Memorial Park.
The Cardinals will challenge SEEBA, Sherwood Park Gold, Red Deer Braves and Foothills Black for provincial honours. The overall record for the host team is 20-10 (17-4 in league and 3-6 in tournaments).
Thursday’s opening ceremonies start at 6 p.m. with the parade of players. Justin Wack will sing the national anthem and Mayor Nolan Crouse will fire the first pitch to Cardinals’ catcher Mason Libich. The skills competition follows at 6:30 p.m. All players will participate in a minimum of one event. Each team will also be represented by four players in the Rickey Henderson home-to-home timed event, the Ozzie Smith quick hands timed event, the Willie Mays outfield skills competition and the Jose Bautista home run derby.
In tournament action Friday, the host team plays SEEBA at 9 a.m. and Red Deer at 6 p.m. Saturday’s game against Foothills starts at 3 p.m. The last game in the round robin goes noon Sunday against Sherwood Park.
If there are no tiebreakers, the final is 3 p.m. Sunday.
Visit www.stalbertbaseball.com or www.baseballalberta.com for the complete schedule.
The Baseball Alberta midget performance championship gets under way Thursday in Sherwood Park for the St. Albert Cardinals.
Game times are 3 p.m. against Sherwood Park Gold and 7 p.m. against the Red Deer Braves.
At 6 p.m. Friday, the Cardinals are up to bat against SEEBA 1, the top seed in the 11-team draw.
The last game for the Cardinals in pool A is noon Saturday against SEEBA 2.
The top three teams in both pools qualify for the crossover playoffs. The final is 5 p.m. Sunday.
The Cardinals are seeded ninth at provincials. In the Norwest league they finished 7-20, with four wins in their last 10 games.
A collection of house league players from St. Albert and Morinville celebrated winning a Baseball Alberta peewee A provincial title last weekend in Athabasca.
Team officials said it’s the first peewee community Tier II championship in the history of the St. Albert Minor Baseball Association.
Down three games, the St. Albert Cardinals battled back to win three in a row Sunday, including a 14-9 decision against Leduc in the final. They had to beat Bawlf twice to reach the final. Scores were 14-13 and 16-5.
The Cardinals had three weeks together to prepare for provincials after their house league season ended.
The Cardinals are Logan Buchanan, Anthony Owen, Andrew Odegard, Jacob Enright, Cole Predinchuk, Tylor Jans, Landon Bishop, Jacob Pasqual, Ross Supurniuk, Jack Farrell, Michael Knoblauch, Dante Policicchio, Nicholas Anderson, Nash MacDonald and ShoNenn Pomerleau-Piquette. The head coach is Jason Enright and the assistant coaches are Rick Owen and Bill Predinchuk. The manager is Gary Odegard.
Fresh off a winning record at the Red Deer Riggers’ tournament, the St. Albert Tigers Black are preparing for the senior AAA provincials by playing the Fort Saskatchewan Athletics in the Sunburst Baseball League playoffs.
Game 1 was scheduled for Tuesday in Fort Saskatchewan, but the score was unavailable at press time. Game 2 goes tonight at 8 p.m. at Legion Memorial Park. If a third and deciding game is needed, it will be staged Thursday in Fort Saskatchewan at 7 p.m.
In league play, the Athletics (14-1) finished first and the Tigers (5-9) placed fourth out of five teams. The Tigers also lost all four games in league play against the 2009 national champions and last year’s provincial finalists.
The Baseball Alberta championship starts Aug. 5 in Fort Saskatchewan.
Last weekend in Red Deer, the Tigers finished third overall in the six-team draw and pocketed $600 for their efforts. After losing 5-3 to the Riggers, the Tigers edged the Calgary Redbirds 3-2 and mercied the injury-riddled Red Deer Stags 12-2 in six innings.
In the tournament opener, the Riggers scored four runs in the second inning to lead 5-2. Jarvis Grenier tossed an eight-hitter over seven innings while going the distance for the Tigers. All five Red Deer runs were unearned.
Starting pitcher Derek Dallorto was the game star against the Redbirds.
In the third/fourth playoff game, Craig Tomas was strong on the mound against the Stags. Scott Boersen batted 3-for-3 with four RBIs and John McHugh went 3-for-3 with two doubles. Dan McDonald and Luc Riopel also had multiple singles in the win.
