The midget AA St. Albert Cardinals Red have taken the gold medal in the Early Bird Tournament for the second year in a row.
The victory came after a dominating 10-4 win over Edmonton's Community Parks Reds in the championship game last Monday afternoon at Legion Memorial Park in St. Albert.
Coach Jason Enright said while his team won't lose focus moving forward in the season toward their goal of winning the provincial championships, it's precisely the kind of result they were hoping for.
"This is the second year in a row we won the early bird which, if my memory serves me, is the first time that the midget AA won back-to-back years," he said. "That's a great accomplishment for this team."
He credited the win in no small part to having a strong defensive game throughout the tournament, giving up just seven runs over the course of the weekend.
In particular, he said the pitching was top-notch with two pitchers leading the charge.
"Our pitching performance was dominated by Tanner McLean-Poll and Mitchell King," he said. "They were the aces of our staff."
King anchored the Cardinals defence for two of the four games in the tournament, while McLean-Poll pitched for one full game – he wasn't available for more because high-school graduation ceremonies also took place over the weekend.
Enright said while the success can't all be pinned on them, they really helped rally the team to victory.
"It was dominating to know we had those guys," he said. "We had other guys as well when we needed them to pitch well, but there's no doubt those two were our aces."
On the offence side the Cardinals were no slouches either, although Enright said it would be much more difficult to single out any specific successes.
"It was well balanced. At key times we had different guys step up," he said. "There isn't one guy I would say dominated over anyone else, it was just a good offensive team effort all the way through the lineup."
The Cardinals Red saw early success in the their first two games of the tournament, running the tally up to 10-0 against the South Jasper Place Jays before invoking the mercy rule, then repeated the feat Saturday evening with an 11-1 thrashing of the SportsWorld Braves.
They had to work a little harder to earn a 6-2 win over the Leduc Giants on Sunday afternoon, but made it happen and earned their place in the final against the Community Park Reds.
Monday's gold-medal game was a decidedly one-sided affair from the beginning, with the Cardinals' Mason Libich, Mitchell King, Tanner McLean-Poll and Jake Enright crossing the plate in the first inning.
They expanded their lead to 7-0 in the second inning with runs from Nate Brisson, Ben Grabia and Derrick Dahlseide. It wasn't until after King and McLean-Poll got an another run each in the third inning that the Reds got on the board with a single run.
They were able to start mounting something of a late-game comeback, scoring another two in the sixth and one in the seventh, but by that time the deficit proved insurmountable and the Cardinals held on for the gold.
The wins last weekend improve the Cardinals' record this season to 12-0, counting four regular season games, four exhibition games, and the four wins at the Early Bird.
Enright said the team won't be satisfied with that start, however, until the winning streak extends longer than last season's streak.
"We started off last year 19-0, so we're hoping to keep the train rolling," he said.
Their goal isn't simply to keep the train rolling, it's to keep it rolling right through the provincial championships to be able to play at the Western Canadian championships as the Alberta champions.
One way or the other, however, they're guaranteed a spot as hosts.
AA Cardinals Blue blanked
While the Cardinals Red saw significant successes this weekend, the Cardinals Blue struggled on the diamond and couldn't come out ahead in any of their three matches.
Thy finished the tournament with a 0-2-1 record. They split a Friday-evening match against the Stony Plain Royals 11-11 before heading back to the diamond first thing Saturday morning where they came up short 17-7 against the Edmonton Angels.
They faced the Community Park Reds on Sunday evening, and didn't fare as well as their Cardinal counterparts, dropping the match 12-2.
