The Yorkton R. Miller’s Cardinals were the victims of some bad luck this past weekend at the 2015 Bantam ‘AA’ Provincials held at Yorkton’s Jubilee Park.
The Cardinals finished the round-robin with a pair of wins, a 7-6 extra inning victory over the Swift Current Indians and a 5-2 win over the Prince Albert Royals, and one loss 8-5 to the Unity Cardinals, but finished in third place due to the tiebreaker as both Swift Current and Unity had both also finished with 2-1 records. “If Unity would have lost their game to Swift Current 3-2 instead of 3-1 then we would have been in, so it came down to just a marginal play,” mentioned R. Miller Bantam Cardinal co-coach Larry Kitchen. “Swift Current had the best defensive record, then it came down to head-to-head and Unity had beaten us this morning and so they were awarded second place.
“It came so close that if we had won our extra inning game with none out instead of one out then we would have been in first place.”
But while it’s disappointing for Kitchen to not see his team go through to the playoff round, he says the team certainly has nothing to be sad about. “They played hard and we have no regrets. We matched up to the best teams in the province and held our own,” offered Kitchen, continuing, “Hands down we played competitive baseball and if somebody would say that we were just two house league teams put together nobody would believe that.”
Kitchen also said that the tournament, eventually won by the Humboldt Dodgers 10-0 over Unity in the final game, went off without a hitch despite the Cardinals and Cardinal parents taking on the responsibility of hosting the competition only weeks prior to it being held. “We only had three weeks to get it going otherwise it would have been cancelled,” said Kitchen. “We have a great venue here, we’ve done it before so the experience helped and the tournament committee really did a lot of work and that was just 10 parents.
“We’ve really got to be proud of what we’ve done and the whole province is appreciative of what we did.”
Other Provincial action
The Bantam Cardinals weren’t the only Cardinal team taking part in Provincial play this past weekend.
The Yorkton Peewee ‘AA’ Cardinals also saw some action, going 0-4 at the 2015 Peewee ‘AA’ Provincials in Weyburn, losing to the Lloydminster Twins 16-2 and Prince Albert Royals 22-8 on Friday before falling to the eventual champion Swift Current Indians 25-1 in their first game on Saturday and 23-7 to the White Butte Broncos in their final game of the tournament.