The bantam AAA St. Albert Cardinals went 3-1 on their final weekend of regular season play, but they still have one more game to go before provincials.
It will be a make-up game after a rainout earlier in the season against SEEBA. Game time is 7 p.m. tonight at Rundle Park.
The outcome will have no effect on St. Albert in terms of seeding at provincials since each of the five teams play each other team once in the tier I tournament in Okotoks. The only impact it will have is that St. Albert will have to use at least one of its pitchers.
For SEEBA (12-11) though, it could be their biggest game of the year to date. SEEBA and Okotoks Red (12-10) are fighting it out for the fifth and final spot in tier I provincials. One team will have to settle for tier II. The race will come down to three make-up games this week.
While SEEBA plays the Cardinals (15-6), the Okotoks Red and the last-place Calgary Cubs (2-17) met on Tuesday night (score not available at press time) and then they go up against Okotoks Black (14-6-1) tonight.
The winner of tier I provincials will attend nationals in Vaughn, Ont. in late August. Joining St. Albert at provincials will be Red Deer (16-7-1), Sherwood Park Gold (16-8), Okotoks Black and either Okotoks Red or SEEBA.
Over the weekend at Legion Memorial Park, St. Albert suffered a disappointing 8-2 loss to Sherwood Park Gold on Saturday.
“We didn’t play a very good game against a tier I team that we should be able to beat,” said Cardinals coach Dave Maguire. “I think we committed something like seven errors. I don’t have the scoresheets in front of me, but I know there was way, way too many errors in a game that if we’d have executed, we would’ve won.”
Maguire said he isn’t too worried about the effect the loss will have on his team.
“You could look at it two ways,” he said. “One way is maybe it makes Sherwood Park overconfident when they play us next time, and I guess the other way is that maybe it effects them [the Cardinals players]. I don’t think so. I think that we’ve got a pretty resilient team. It’s concentration and focus, right? If they do what they’re able and capable of doing, we’ll be successful.”
Later in the day, they came back with a win over the Spruce Grove White Sox (7-16). St. Albert was ahead 11-0 in the third inning, but saw its big lead slip away and had to go the full seven innings for the 16-8 victory.
On Sunday, the Cardinals came out strong against the Cubs in two games they were expected to win and were impressive on defence, pitching and at the dish. They won 13-0 in five innings and 13-3 in six innings.
In the first game, Ryan Anderson was fantastic pitching a complete game shutout while giving up just four hits and striking out nine. At the plate, Mat Brisson and Tyler Mecir each had two runs batted in.
In the second game, Cam Vilcsak got the start on the mound, going five innings and giving up just four hits and two runs.
Tanner Karpinski finished off Calgary in the sixth with a bases-clearing double that put his team up by 10. Meanwhile, leadoff hitter Jay Florkevich went 4-for-4 with two stolen bases and four runs scored. That came on the heels of an equally impressive first game of the day when he was also 4-for-4 with two stolen bases and two runs.
“Jay is the quintessential leadoff hitter,” Maguire said. “He puts the ball in play and has above-average speed. This puts pressure on the opposition defence. This was very evident [Sunday].”
The provincial schedule was unavailable at press time. Visit www.baseballalberta.ca and www.stalbertbaseball.com for updates.
