The St. Albert Cardinals are packing a punch as peewee AAA contenders at the Baseball Alberta Tier I championship.
“One through 12 we’ve got 12 kids on our team who can hit. We go up there and we hit the ball,” said head coach Travis Parker on the eve of provincials in Spruce Grove.
“It amazed me at the beginning of the year because honestly I thought our defence would be the best part of our game. I thought that would save us all year and it's been our hitting,” Parker added. “Our defence is good but our hitting has surprised me. We’re getting 15, 16, 17 hits a game, which at this age group a lot of times it’s seven, eight hits, so our hitting has been very impressive.”
The Cardinals started banging the ball in Friday’s pool B game against the Edmonton Padres. The score was unavailable at press time.
Today the Cardinals face off against the Calgary Dinos at 9 a.m. and the defending champion Okotoks Dawgs at 6 p.m.
The host Parkland Twins, Red Deer Braves, Sherwood Park A’s and Camrose Cougars form pool A.
If there are no tiebreakers Sunday, the semifinal crossovers are at 9 a.m., the third-place game at 12 p.m. and the final at 3 p.m.
Visit www.baseballalberta.com for the schedule.
The winner goes to the U13 Baseball Canada championship, Aug. 23 to 26 at Woodstock, Ont., and the second and third finishers qualify for westerns, Aug. 16 to 19 at Brandon.
“Our goal is to make it to nationals or westerns,” outfielder Luke Bachanan said.
Parkland, Okotoks and the Cardinals are ranked one-two-three after the provincial round with three losses apiece.
“We had some untimely rain-outs so we played in less games than the other teams,” said Parker of the Cardinals, 15 wins in 18 games, compared to 16 in 19 for Okotoks and 18 in 21 for Parkland.
The overall standings list Parkland at 24-3, followed by Okotoks and the Cardinals at 19-5 apiece.
“We’ve played really well. We’ve competed with every single team,” Parker said.
Buchanan agreed. “We’re a really good ball team like all together,” said the Grade 8 Lorne Akins student. “We’ve done really well. Lots of winning. Haven’t lost many games. There are just a couple of teams we have trouble with, like letting down against them.”
Buchanan, Cam Bergstrom and Keenan Parker are returning Cardinals from the third-place team at the 2017 provincials in St. Albert.
“We’re both really good hitting teams and the fielding is fantastic,” said Buchanan, 13. “Communication and not letting our players get down on themselves is pretty big too.”
The Cardinals haven’t missed a beat with seven first-year players.
“We’ve got a young group of kids, which gives us a good core for next year obviously. A bunch of them came up from mosquito,” Parker said. “We have probably the best one through 12 out of any team out there. Some teams have good one through four but we have one through 12.
“And these kids have worked so hard this year.”
