The midget AAA Cardinals earned their second win in as many nights when they beat Spruce Grove 2 with a 10-9 score Thursday night at Legion Park. The Cards gave up nothing to the Sherwood Park Athletics the previous evening earning an 11-0 victory.
The highlight of Thursday’s game came courtesy of second baseman Austin Watamaniuk who thrilled the crowd by stealing home in the second inning.
“It’s something very special you don’t see,” says Cardinals manager C.J. Jayasekera. “It’s an anomaly in baseball and it’s one of the most exciting plays, just like the inside-the-park home run. He was a little long to the plate and we took advantage, Austin being very quick. And he got a really good jump and it was quite an exciting play to watch.”
Watamaniuk had a stellar night stealing four bases, pitching one inning and bringing in the winning run at the bottom of the seventh. Watamaniuk hit a ground ball to the infield that brought Matthew Quartel in from third base to earn the game winner.
Jayasekera said the score see-sawed back and forth for the majority of the game.
“We never let it get out of hand,” he says. “We managed to always just give up a run or two runs each inning and that’s how they kept tacking on, but ultimately we managed to do the same on our end of it.”
The team’s never-give-up attitude contributed to the Cardinals win last night and the team manager says it has been a constant.
“At the end of the day they battled,” Jayasekera says. “They didn’t give up and we’ve done a very good job overall in the past month and a half to keep battling even when we’re down.”
Even though they managed to pull out a win, the St. Albert defence wasn’t strong against Spruce Grove.
“Being in the zone and throwing quality strikes – we struggled in that aspect of it,” says Jayasekera. “Just defensively all around we weren’t very clean either. We made a couple of mistakes, a couple of errors on defence as well, and behind the plate.”
He says that pitching and a strong defence will be key to scoring more wins this season.
“In all the games where we’ve done really well, we’ve played catch really well and our pitchers have given quality starts which is typically for us five plus innings so that gives us an opportunity to win if we do that,” says Jayasekera. “I think definitely we’re going to have a chance to win against any of the other teams.”
The midget AAA Cardinals are currently sitting at sixth place in the standings with a 13-10 record. On Sunday, they play a doubleheader against the Black Dawgs in Okotoks. The Black (19-3) are the No. 2-ranked team in the Norwest League.
