The St. Albert Senior (30-plus) Cardinals celebrated winning the Alberta West Central Baseball Association championship Thursday at Legion Memorial Park.
The Cardinals were awarded the Lloyd Marklinger Memorial Trophy after taming the first-place Westlock Red Lions 6-3 in the deciding game in the best-of-three final.
The Cardinals turned three double plays in support of Dave Edwards, who pitched a complete gem of a game.
David Ross batted 4-for-4 and Darren Schienbein was 2-for 3 as the Cardinals rebounded in style from Tuesday’s 8-2 loss in St. Albert.
Nolan Thiessen and Justin Watamaniuk split the pitching duties in game two.
The Red Lions racked up eight consecutive runs after Joe Tauber led off the bottom of the first and came around to score.
It was 1-1 in the third when the Cardinals loaded the bases with none out but failed to score. The Red Lions replied with five runs in the top of the fourth.
In Monday’s series opener, the Cardinals erased a 4-0 deficit with five runs in the top of the seventh, highlighted by Rob Good’s liner into right-centre field with two outs to score the tying and go-ahead runs.
In the bottom of the seventh, with two Red Lions on base and none out, Edwards entered the game and the first batter he faced popped up his bunt. Edwards pulled off a nifty catch and then doubled off the runner at first.
Edwards walked the next batter before nailing down the win with a strikeout.
In the best-of-three semifinal, the third-place Cardinals knocked off the Fort Saskatchewan A’s after losing game one 5-2 on the road.
The Cardinals evened the series with a 5-1 decision in St. Albert and completed the comeback by a score of 8-2 in the Fort.
The Cardinals finished 14-7-1 in league and playoffs combined.
