The St. Albert Cardinals gave it their best shot but missed the mark at the St. Albert Tigers Tournament.
The 17-3 Norwest Midget AAA Baseball League team is 22-10 overall after losing all three games in the Waples division.
Scores were 5-4 in eight innings against the Calgary Longhorns and 10-6 against the senior AAA Tigers on Saturday and 11-3 against the Blue Willow Angels on Sunday at Legion Memorial Park.
“We didn’t play as well as we thought we should have,” said Danny Tkachyk, a third-year midget AAA Red Bird.
The Cardinals packed some punch at the plate against Calgary but the Longhorns singled home the winning run in the bottom of the eighth.
“That was a pretty good hitting game for us,” Tkachyk said.
A four spot in the second inning against the Tigers quickly vanished as the Cardinals surrender a three-run homer in the next inning after leading 4-2.
“That started their rally to put up a whole bunch of runs,” Tkachyk said of the Sunburst Baseball League team. “That’s a good ball club. Their pitchers threw well and they hit well.
“It’s fun playing against those guys. I know a couple of guys on the team like their starting pitcher, Mat Brisson. He played on this team before and it was funny watching him pitch against his brother (Mike, a first-year midget AAA Cardinal).”
Errors, walks and a lack of strikes against Blue Willow, also known as the Edmonton Blackhawks in the North Central Alberta Baseball League, proved costly for the Cardinals in their fifth loss in the last six league and tournament games combined.
“We struggled,” said Tkachyk, 18, who caught both games Saturday and patrolled centre-field Sunday.
Tuesday the Cardinals had a league game on tap against the Sherwood Park A’s (19-4) at Centennial Park but the score was unavailable at press time.
The A’s and Cardinals were second and third, respectively, in the Norwest standings behind the first-place Parkland Twins (19-5).
This weekend the Cardinals are in Spokane for the American Legion Wood Bat Classic tournament.
The next Norwest game is July 7 against Parkland at 7 p.m. in St. Albert.
Members of the St. Albert Mustangs Track and Field Club are going places this summer.
Jacob Wessel, Matthew Harrison, Emma Murchison and Samantha L’Heureux were Team Alberta selections for the Tri-Prov Western Canadian midget and youth championships, July 14 to 16 in Winnipeg, based on their performances at the recent CALTAF Track Classic in Calgary.
Podium finishes at CALTAF were as follows:
Harrison: midget men – second in 200-metre hurdles, 27.56 seconds; third in 100m hurdles, 14.92.
Murchison: youth women – third in 400m, 1:02.79.
L’Heureux: midget women – second in high jump, 1.50m; third in shot put, 10.21m.
Madelyn Curle also made Team Alberta for the Canada Summer Games, July 28 to Aug. 13 in Winnipeg with a successful high jump of 1.65m at the Trials Tune Up meet at Foote Field last weekend and will be competing at the Tri-Prov meet with the provincial CSG senior team.
Meanwhile, Ardrossan resident Ryder Horton of the Mustangs will be competing at junior nationals, July 3 to 9 in Ottawa, in the 400m in the U20 age group.
At the CALTAF meet in the youth men’s division, Horton finished first in the 800m at 1:56.09 and was second in the 400m at 48.87.
Two playoff losses were two too many for the St. Albert Midget A Zone Rams in the Greater Edmonton Lacrosse Council.
The Rams were eliminated from the four-team double-knockout playoff format by scores of 5-4 against the Sherwood Park Titans in Stony Plain and 7-5 against the Parkland Posse in Sherwood Park.
The Posse (8-3-2), Titans (6-6-1) and Rams (5-5-3) were seeded first, second and third, respectively, in the playoffs.
