The St. Albert Tigers are up to bat Friday as the host team for the Baseball Alberta senior AAA provincial championship at Legion Memorial Park.
The first game for the Tigers in the round robin draw is 11 a.m. against the Fort Saskatchewan Athletics, the 2009 national champions.
Last week the Athletics swept the Tigers in the Sunburst Baseball League semifinals by scores of 6-3 and 6-4.
In league play the Athletics (11-5) finished first and the Tigers (5-6) placed fourth out of five teams.
The Tigers also play the Red Deer Stags (7-6-1) at 8 p.m. Friday, the Calgary Redbirds (1-9) at 5 p.m. Saturday and the reigning provincial champion Red Deer Riggers (7-5-1) at noon Sunday.
If there are no tiebreakers, the final is 3 p.m. Sunday. See page 51 for the provincial schedule.
The winner will represent Alberta at the 2011 nationals in Quebec. The last three host teams at provincials have won the tournament. Last year the Tigers failed to win a game at provincials.
The St. Albert Impact Rangers kick off their premier men’s B division fixtures Thursday against Polonia. Game time is 7 p.m. at Riel Park.
The 12 team round-robin draw wrapped up last week and the Rangers (3-2-6) finished seventh, one point out of sixth spot. Polonia (2-6-3) was 11th. The top six teams were slotted in the A division and the remaining six teams play in the B division.
The last game for the Rangers was a 3-1 win against 10th place Roots United (3-7-1) in St. Albert.
Emmett Keenan and Mark McQuaid share the team lead in goals with six apiece.
Online registrations for the St. Albert Triathlon closed last weekend with 255 entries for Sunday’s competition at Fountain Park Recreation Centre.
Another 20 triathletes had signed up manually before the cut-off date.
Race events include the sprint and sprint team relay (750-metre swim, 20-kilometre bike and five-km run) and try-a-tri (250m swim, 10-km bike, 2.5-km run). The start time for the first heat in the pool is 7:30 a.m.
The top male and female last year was Kris Loshack at 58 minutes and 21 seconds as race champion and Kelly Geishmeimer at 1:05:39 for fifth place overall. The turnout was pegged at 288 participants.
Ryan Kohlenberg of St. Albert was the runner-up last year at 59:35 after winning the 2008 race at 1:01:56. Lisa Graham of St. Albert was the fastest female in 2008 at 1:09:37 for sixth place overall.
The St. Albert Roadrunners and Triathlon Club is hosting the Triathlon Alberta sanctioned race.
Volunteers can still sign up by contacting Lucille at [email protected]
