Diamond Dust

If it rains this weekend then the St. Albert Tigers are holding their annual tournament at Legion Memorial Park.

Since 1991, the tournament has been rained out eight times, including last year and three years in a row from 2013 to 2015.

This year's tournament features two Norwest Midget AAA Baseball League teams – St. Albert Cardinals (17-3) and SEEBA (13-4), last year's Baseball Alberta Tier I champion – plus the junior AAA South Jasper Place Jays (11-1).

The Blue Willow Angels are actually the Edmonton Blackhawks (4-1) of the North Central Alberta Baseball League.

The Tigers (2-6) are joined by the Red Deer Riggers (7-2) and Sherwood Park Athletes (2-4) as the Sunburst Baseball League senior AAA reps.

The Calgary Longhorns are also entered.

In the Waples division, the Tigers are up to bat Friday against Calgary at 8 p.m. and Saturday against Blue Willow at 2 p.m. and the Cardinals at 8 p.m.

Sunday's final between the first-place teams in the Waples and Young divisions is 2 p.m.

Meanwhile, the Tigers strung together two wins in consecutive nights last week in the Sunburst circuit by scores of 7-5 against the Athletics, the defending senior AAA provincial champions, in Sherwood Park and 7-4 against the Confederation Park Cubs (5-4) in St. Albert.

Luc Riopel of the Tigers is batting a league-hit .500 and is the team leader in hits with 11, including 10 singles.

Evan Hoffman has slugged two home runs and Jessy Beley has driven in eight runs while batting .448.

Kern Watt leads all Sunburst players in steals with five.

Veteran pitcher Craig Tomas has logged a league-high 22 innings while striking out 11.

Jared Roddelt has also fanned nine batters in 16.1 innings and Mat Brisson is sixth in ERA at 2.50 in 14 innings of work.

Tuesday the Tigers played the Riggers in Red Deer but the score was unavailable at press time.

The first-place St. Albert Cardinals met their match in Fort McMurray last weekend in the Norwest Midget AAA Baseball League.

The Cardinals (17-3) recorded one win in the three-games series against the Oil Giants (10-11) and scores were losses of 1-0 and 10-7 and the 7-0 victory in game three.

Kyler Charchun, an import from Camrose, homered for the Cardinals in game two.

Tuesday the Cardinals, 22-7 overall, hosted the second-place Parkland Twins (16-5) in league play but the score was unavailable at press time.

Tonight's exhibition against the St. Albert Junior Cardinals (2-3) of the North Central Alberta Baseball League starts at 6:30 p.m. at Legion park.

This weekend at the St. Albert Tigers Tournament, the Cardinals have games on tap Saturday against the Calgary Longhorns at 11 a.m. and the senior AAA Tigers at 8 p.m. and Sunday against the Blue Willow Angels at 11 a.m.

The St. Albert Cardinals are undefeated in 12 games this season in the Baseball Alberta midget AA league after last weekend's three-game series in Bonnyville.

The opening game was 11-10 against the host Braves (4-6) as the Cardinals rallied from an 10-8 deficit in the bottom of the sixth inning with one run and in the seventh rallied for a pair with two outs to walk it off.

The next game was 13-3 over the Edmonton Padres (5-4). The Cardinals were down 3-0 entering the fourth when their bats caught on fire.

The last game was 6-5 over the Fort McMurray Oil Giants (2-6). The Cardinals fell behind 5-2 before rallying to score four runs in the sixth and then held on in the seventh for the win.

Jason Enright, head coach of the two-time defending Tier I provincial champions and 2016 Western Canada U18 gold medallists, described this year's edition of Cardinals as "very resilient."

"It's a very young team that seems to start off slow but has shown the ability to never give up and get back into every game," said the 2016 recipient of the Baseball Alberta Ted Rudge Coach of the Year Award, which is presented annually to a minor coach who directed his/her team with sportsmanship.

Previous winners from the St. Albert Minor Baseball Association were Dave McGuire (2012), Marc Dallorto (1997) and John Edgar (1989).

The Cardinals, 21-5 overall, completed the second of three rounds in the league schedule as the top Tier 1 team.

The next game is Tuesday's exhibition against the Confederation Park Cubs at 7 p.m. at Empire Park.

The Girls Prairie League Softball championship weekend for A division teams is slated for Henry Singer Ball Park this weekend.

Fastball St. Albert is represented by the U12A (Edwards), U14A (Lavoy) and U16A (McNutt) Angels.

Going into the final weekend, the U12A team finished first out of five teams and the U16 and U18 teams placed fourth in their divisions.

Visit www.gpls.ca for schedules and results.

Meanwhile, the U12B (Pankiw) Angels won the GPLS B division championship in Sunday's 13-12 decision over the Unity Panthers in Trochu.