The Yorkton R. Miller’s ‘AA’ Bantam Cardinals had just three days to prepare for the 23rd annual Melville Baseball Tournament, not coming together as a team until Tuesday, July 7.
That lack of cohesiveness showed at times with the Cards going 0-4 in the tournament.
“It’s our first games together as a squad seeing as we just picked the team,” head coach Jason Sliva told the paper. “We saw some good things from the team and some things we need to work on but with a few practices the team should come together.”
The Cardinals opened the tournament up with a game against one of the top teams in the province, falling to the Regina Pacers by a score of 14-9.
The Cards followed that up with back-to-back round-robin losses, losing to the Regina Jr. All-Stars by a score of 10-9 before dropping an 8-4 decision to Weyburn to finish the round-robin at 0-3 in Pool ‘B’.
That meant the Cardinals had to take on the host Melville Millionaires in the third A/fourth B matchup, as Melville posted a 1-2 record losing to the Saskatoon Braves and Pembina Hills while dusting Carrot River 16-7 to finish in third place in Pool ‘A’.
The Mils took advantage of a depleted Yorkton bullpen, jumping out to an 8-1 lead only to have the plucky Cards chip away and make it 8-5.
However a trio of Melville runs late in the game sealed the Cardinal coffin as Yorkton lost 11-6.
The loss meant that the Cardinals, who were missing two key players and fielding just nine all weekend long, were eliminated from the tournament without winning a game despite playing ‘AAA’ teams hard all weekend long. “Those guys we were missing are definitely a solid part of the offence, defence and pitching corps,” offered Sliva, continuingn “But what we had here was a bunch of guys that rose to the task. There was some really hot weather and playing with only nine guys meant no one was able to sit down. They rose to the task.
“We played some of the top teams in the province and these guys competed with them. That says a lot because we haven’t been together as a team for more than three days.”
Sliva believes that the performance in Melville proves that the R. Miller’s Cardinals have what it takes to do well at ‘AA’ Provincials, although he admits they do have some stuff to work on in practice. “We’re excited but we’ve got some work ahead of us. We have to iron out some of the kinks within the team but like I said, we’ve got a good group of kids that work hard. It’s going to be fun and I can’t wait to see them out there competing against some ‘AA’ teams.
“I don’t go in to a tournament without expecting to win it, so I’d like to go to St. Albert, Alberta, for Westerns but first we’ve got some good teams to go through. I expect them to play hard and play some meaningful baseball on Sunday that’s for sure.”
The Yorkton R. Miller’s ‘AA’ Cardinals will be hosting the ‘AA’ Bantam Provincials from July 24-26.