The St. Albert Midget AA Cardinals took home gold medal in the Larry Rindero Tournament with a clean sweep of the opposition. The tournament, which took place over the long weekend, saw the Cardinals outscore their opponents 67-27.
“We kind of dominated,” said coach Terry Watson. “We were a perfect 3-0 to get us into the finals.”
The Cardinals went up against the Camrose Cougars, who went 2-1 over the weekend leading to their finals, losing 10-6 against the Parkland Twins.
The final started off close, with the teams trading runs in the first inning followed by a scoreless second. It was the bottom of the third inning when the Cardinals really ripped the game wide open, scoring five runs and chasing Camrose’s pitcher.
“The boys were really swinging the bat hard today,” Watson said of the team’s big third inning. “We were hitting some good balls in the gaps, we were hitting the ball well.”
The Cougars were able to get one at the top of the fourth, but the Cardinals were able to reply with two consecutive runs, one off an error, to essentially put the game away before the start of the fifth. The Cardinals would build on their 8-2 lead to eventually win 11-3, closing out a perfect tournament for the boys.
“We had one of our veterans on the mound today,” Watson said of their pitcher, Landon Christoffel. “I think we had the most amount of ground ball outs we had this year, he pitched really well.” Camrose wasn’t able to find the same consistency, fielding three different pitchers before the final buzzer.
“We’re lucky to have the AA program that we do,” said Kurtus Millar, president of the St. Albert Minor Baseball Association. “This is a brand new team, there’s only a handful of guys returning from the championship team that they’ve had the last few years.”
Millar acknowledged the strong players on the Midget Cardinals who moved up from the bantam. “They’re young, but they didn’t play like they were a young midget team at all. I’m really proud of how they played and conducted themselves on the field.”
There was no possibility of a repeat of last year, as the tournament was cancelled due to rain. It was gorgeous all weekend as temperatures in the mid-20s all weekend, going up to 26 C on Monday.
“It was awesome to finally have some sunshine,” Millar said.
The Midget AA Cardinals have won the previous two tournaments, which was formerly known as the Early Bird tournament.
Around the diamond
More than 80 games were played over the weekend spanning four age groups, with eight Cardinals teams representing St. Albert.
In the mosquito final, it was an all St. Albert affair, as both the Red and Blue Cardinals teams fought it out, the Red team taking it 14-2. Both teams were an undefeated 4-0 heading into the final. The future of St. Albert baseball seems to be in very good hands.
“That was really cool to see,” said Millar. “For the Blue team to play the way that they did, wow.”
The peewee division featured two Cardinals teams, with team Red and team Blue both finishing 2-2. Neither team qualified for the finals, which saw Camrose defeat South Jasper Place for the gold.
The bantam boys also featured two St. Albert teams, the Cardinals Red finished 3-1. The final featured the Foothills Orange Outlaws (4-0) and the Camrose Royals (4-0), with Camrose taking the gold.
The Camrose Cougars went home with some hardware, two gold medals in the peewee and bantam divisions, and silver in the midget final.
“We work very closely with Camrose, and really enjoy their president, Wes Harrison,” Millar said “I though it was pretty cool how both won two divisions.”
