TISDALE, HUMBOLDT, CARROT RIVER, ARBORFIELD — The Tisdale Rangers senior team is competing to be the first ever Highway 3 Baseball League champion.
After defeating Humboldt, 2-1, in a wild semifinal, the Rangers tangle with the Birch Hills Brewers for the Labatt’s Cup, named for one of the league’s supportive sponsors. Game one is in Tisdale on Aug. 10. Birch Hills hosts game two on Thursday. If needed, a third and final contest will be held in Tisdale on Friday.
“There was a lot of excitement bringing senior ball back to our area and the support shown was awesome,” said Rangers player/organizer Tanner Kirkland. “We’re super excited to keep playing for everyone and giving ourselves a chance at winning the first Highway 3 league championship.”
The two teams met once during the regular season. Tisdale triumphed 8-4.
“Birch Hills is a good team, really good pitching, batting and defence,” Kirkland said. “We are going to have to keep our hot streak rolling and keep playing the way we know we can play.”
The Rangers posted a 5-3 regular season record. Facing the Humboldt Dodgers in the playoffs, Tisdale fell 15-5 in game one. The Rangers bounced back to even the best-of-three series up at 1-1 with a 7-6 game two victory. In the third contest, Tisdale went from trailing 10-5 in the bottom of the seventh to win 11-10.
“Everybody did their job, clutch hitting and baserunning from all nine guys,” Kirkland said. “With that many fans out, it was awesome to get the job done.”
Pasquia Angels
The Pasquia Angels – a Arborfield and Carrot River squad – posted the best record – 6-2 – in the first ever Highway 3 Baseball League regular season. In the playoffs, the team fell 2-0 in a best-of-three series to Birch Hills.
“They played exceptional and deserved to win,” Angels representative Lane Gerwing said. One of the highlights of the Angels’ season was its home opener. Gerwing said the squad had no idea what to expect of the first senior baseball game played at Arborfield’s Bryden Park.
“Five minutes before the game there were about 10-15 people there, and we all thought ‘Hey, not bad,’ and then we saw a series of vehicles enter the ballpark that seemingly didn’t end,” he said. “Within 15 minutes, there were over 100 people there to watch us. We continually averaged over 100 people at our home games, and I think just providing that community event in our area and seeing how much our communities enjoyed it and wanted to support us would have been the biggest highlight.”
The Angels were pleased to get back onto the diamond and play competitive baseball again.
“It really brought our group of guys together and made everyone closer friends and getting to see the impact it had on our community and the communities we visited was definitely something we all were pleasantly surprised at,” Gerwing said.
Humboldt Senior Dodgers
After sweeping a doubleheader on the last day of their regular season, the Dodgers posted a 4-4 regular season record. Humboldt continued its strong play in an extremely competitive series against the Rangers.
“It definitely was an exciting series with lots of back-and-forth action,” Dodgers player/organizer Carter Tarnowski said. “It was really fun to get a little extra competitive in those last few games.”
The best part of the Dodgers’ first season?
“Just getting back on the diamond was the big thing for a lot of us plus everyone just had fun being around the guys playing competitive baseball,” Tarnowski said.
The Humboldt squad played its home games in Marysburg. Tarnowski expressed appreciation for the use of the field and praised it for being “always kept in really good shape.”
Provincials
At the Tier 4 provincials in Hanley, a Pasquia Angels team, made up partly of players from its namesake and partly of Tisdale Rangers, won three games and lost one. Due to the runs against tie-breaker rule, Meadow Lake and Arcola, who also went 3-1, advanced to the championship with the former prevailing, 20-2.
Some Highway 3 Baseball League competitors played on the North East Red Sox squad that went 1-2 in the Senior AA Tier 3 provincials in Davidson. Kirkland said, “the guys played hard but did not get the outcome we were looking for.”
