Perhaps a good night's sleep was all the midget AAA St. Albert Cardinals needed.
After losing their first game of the weekend 8-1 to the Fort McMurray Oil Giants on Saturday afternoon, the Cardinals bounced back on Sunday, taking both ends of a doubleheader by scores of 6-5 and 13-1 in Norwest League action at Legion Memorial Park.
Head coach CJ Jayasekera said he was happy to see his players put the loss behind them and come out strong Sunday.
“At any level of baseball, you turn up on the day, you're going to have a chance to win,” he said. “We know our capabilities and ... it's always an incentive to come back and win.”
In the first game Saturday, the Oil Giants jumped out to an early 5-1 lead after four innings and then tacked on three more in the seventh while pitcher Ryan Nybors shut down the Cardinals' bats.
“He was a little bit [too good] for some of our kids,” Jayasekera said of Nybors.
“Our heads went down because they were overmatched. They gave in,” he added.
The second game of the series was originally scheduled for Saturday evening, but after some trouble scheduling umpires, the teams decided to play two games on Sunday instead.
The first game saw Fort McMurray once again start out strong, scoring three runs in the first inning. The Cardinals responded with three of their own in the fourth and added three more in the sixth inning to hold off the visitors.
“The bats started working. They got some good at-bats,” Jayasekera said. “The guys were very positive and we managed to bounce back, especially from yesterday's loss. We talked about it today and the intensity was there.”
Sunday's finale looked like it was going to be a low-scoring affair until the sixth inning when St. Albert stretched a 2-1 lead to 7-1 thanks to some timely hits by pinch hitters Joel Bauman and Brandon Hoffman and a two-run homer to left field by second baseman Nathan Coffin.
The Cardinals added six more runs in the seventh inning thanks to a series of infield singles, walks and hit batters with the bases loaded.
Jayasekera chalked up the win to getting back to basics.
“From day one ... I said, 'We've got to play catch. We've got to throw strikes. The game is very simple that way,'” he said. “You do that, we have a chance.
“It was good that we rallied back from [Saturday's] game ... We kind of used that momentum to finish it off and you saw them having a good time,” he added. “But it's never a nice thing to finish up 13-1. You want to see both teams have a good game. I'll take a close one any day.”
St. Albert starter Riley Moskaluk allowed just one earned run and fanned six batters in five innings of work.
“He wasn't at his best. He worked out of some long counts,” Jayasekera said. “But he battled, he didn't give in. And he managed it when guys got in behind him.”
New Zealander Alex Dawson picked up the save with two solid innings of work, striking out three.
Jayasekera hopes the team can take the momentum from this series into next weekend’s tournament in Trail, B.C.
“Losing isn't the thing for us. It's being in control out there and putting on a good performance,” he said. “And now we've put on two good ones and I think we can build on it. There's incentive right here to take everything and build on it.”
The Cardinals' next action in the Norwest League is on Saturday, July 13 when they hit the road to take on the Spruce Grove White Sox.
