The Yorkton Peewee 'AA' Cardinals opened their 2014 season on Saturday, March 17 at home against the rival Melville Millionaires.
However the Mils proved to be terrible house guests, crushing the host Cardinals 17-3 despite a strong performance by starter Gregor Farquharson, who surrendered just two runs over three innings of work before getting the hook in favour of a relief pitcher.
That relief pitcher was Cole Frankfurt, who took over the pitching duties as the Yorkton coaching staff opted to get their bullpen pitchers some in-game experience.
The decision proved to be a disaster, however, as the combined bullpen effort of Frankfurt (2/3 innings), Kaeden Koroluk (1/3 inning) and Jarvis Zawatsky (One inning) led to 15 Melville runs over the remaining two innings.
But while the 17-3 loss is certainly not a result that the Peewee Cardinals hope will happen on a regular basis, head coach Shawn Frankfurt felt that the positives of getting players in-game experience early on in the season outweigh the negative score. "We want to use these first few games to get the majority of our players in for at least an inning of work each game so that they get a little bit more experienced by the end of the season," mentioned the head coach, following the 17-3 opening day defeat. "That's why we put a lot of pitchers into the game.
"Sure we had a rough fourth and fifth inning where they scored a lot of runs on us but we also have a younger squad so we need to get them experience."
Frankfurt also noted that the 17-3 loss happened in just the first game of their 20 game schedule to a team that had already had a chance to iron out some mistakes, having previously played three other league games. "This was our first game," said Frankfurt, continuing, "They (Melville) have already had a couple of games so I think we played well."
Next up
The next action for the Yorkton Peewee 'AA' Cardinals will be Sunday, May 25 when they travel down Highway 10 in an attempt to exact some revenge on the Melville Millionaires. Game time is set for 1:00p.m.
The next home action for the Peewee Cardinals will be Sunday, June 1 when the Cards host the Regina Buffalos.
