The St. Albert Tigers proved Sunday that previous results mean nothing when it comes to playing in their home tournament.
For the second straight year, the senior AAA squad came out on top at the Tigers Baseball Tournament at Legion Memorial Park. In the final, the Tigers beat the defending national champion Fort Saskatchewan Athletics 8-3.
Last year, St. Albert rallied to defeat the Red Deer Stags 10-7 in the championship game.
“It’s always nice to win your own tournament, especially to beat a team like that in the final,” said Jessy Beley, 22. “It feels really good. It gets us rolling for the season.”
In the previous two meetings this year, both in the Sunburst league, the first-place Athletics (6-1) came out on top in both while outscoring the Tigers 14-6.
When the Tigers won their first game of the round robin Friday, 2-0 over the Mayerthorpe Mets of the North Central Alberta Baseball League, it was their first win overall after going 0-3 in Sunburst play.
In the final, the Tigers benefited from a spectacular pitching performance from veteran southpaw Dave Ross, who has been on the Tigers’ roster through most of the last 17 seasons. The 42-year-old St. Albert product pitched a seven-inning complete game. He allowed just three hits through his first six innings, and finished with eight hits given up, along with four strikeouts, six walks and three runs as the Tigers played errorless defence.
“It was hot,” Ross said of the temperature that climbed up to 27 C during the afternoon final. “I had to work. I jammed myself up a few times. It was a little tough finding my control early in the game. I don’t think they really got a hold of me. I think I put myself more in jams than they did, but I felt good by the end of the game.”
Beley was one of the men who helped out Ross on offence. Down 1-0 in the bottom of the second inning, Beley reached first base thanks to an error from the Athletics’ third-baseman Henry Duke. His throw to first brought the first-baseman off the bag. Beley would come around to score after moving over to third on a ground ball out and crossing the plate courtesy of a Mike Poelzer single.
Again in the bottom of the fourth inning, Beley took advantage of another very similar play. He hit a ball that likely would have been good for a single anyway, but the throw from Duke missed Jake Sutherland at first. A run scored on the play and Beley moved over to second. He later scored the Tigers’ third run. They led 6-1 by the time the inning was over.
At the plate, Brad Wolansky singled in two runs and Dan McDonald doubled home a pair.
During their last chance to attempt a comeback in the seventh inning the Athletics managed five singles and two runs, but the deficit they faced was too big.
Beley said he expects the tournament win to provide some momentum for the rest of the season.
“It just shows that we can beat these teams, right, and anybody can beat anybody on any given day,” he said. “We’ve got a bit of momentum over these guys, the [Red Deer] Riggers and the Fort, so hopefully we play well and keep it going.”
Athletics centre-fielder Mark Kuzyk said his team didn’t have enough left in the tank going into the final after a couple come-from-behind wins.
“I think we came out a little bit flat. We didn’t have a lot of energy coming into the final game,” said Kuzyk, 22. “We battled all weekend, though. We had a couple of deficits that we came back [from]. In the semifinal game [against the Riggers], we were down, I think, five runs.”
The Tigers played five games in three days, including two on championship Sunday, and finished the tournament 4-1 after going 2-1 in the round robin. Their only loss was 8-0 against the Prince George Grays.
For their efforts, the Tigers received $150 for each of their two round robin wins, including a 5-1 decision over the Riggers, along with $800 for the championship win, which cancels out their $750 entry fee and then some.
On the Sunburst diamond Tuesday, the Tigers hosted the Stags but the score was unavailable at press time. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday the Tigers play the Athletics at Legion Park.
