To say the Moose Jaw Canucks Grey had their bats going during the Baseball Sask 15-and-under Tier III provincial championships would be a bit of an understatement.
Right from their first game of the tournament, the Canucks rang up the runs -- and by the time they’d reach the championship final at Blackwell Diamond on Sunday afternoon, they’d put up double-digit totals in every game they’d played.
Alas, they weren’t able to continue their success in the final, going on to drop a 17-7 decision to the Edam Blue Sox in the gold medal contest.
“We played really good baseball, this was the best baseball we’ve played all year,” said Canucks coach Darcy MacDonald. “We had some pretty good struggles during the middle of the season, but we got hot here at the end of the year and it was good timing. The kids played really well this weekend, and I’m proud as the coach of these boys to see them play up to their potential and get to the final. We wanted the gold, but silver isn’t too bad either.”
The Canucks got things started with a 10-8 win over Sask 5 Giants on Friday night before battling to a 15-12 win over Estevan and falling 15-14 to Gull Lake in their final round robin game Saturday. That was good enough to send Moose Jaw to the semifinal, where they’d take a 15-6 win over Gull Lake Sunday morning to advance to the championship game.
It was all a product of putting tons of balls in play while keeping things as tight as possible in the field despite the rampant offence throughout the weekend.
“They were dialed in right from game one, we came out right away hitting the ball hard and continued through the weekend doing that. And there weren’t a whole lot of errors all weekend, we played pretty tight ball in the field,” MacDonald said. “So it was just a really good tournament for the boys.”
Marcus Capili had a solid game at the plate against Edam, going 3-for-3 with three runs scored, while Ryan Duncan scored a pair of runs and Kyren Ernest had two runs batted in.
Capili also got the start on the mound, allowing seven runs on three hits in 1 ⅓ innings before Brydon Faris allowed six runs on five hits the next two frames. Russell MacDonald closed things out, surrendering four runs on three hits.
“The bats came alive on the other side here, too, and that’ll happen,” coach MacDonald said. “We threw lots of strikes today and I think that what was happening, they were hitting the strikes and a lot of the balls were getting to places we couldn’t get to, too, so just one of those games.”
Brady Carr led Edam with a 4-for-4 showing that included two runs scored and six RBI.
Myles Mosimann was the winning pitcher, allowing seven runs on nine hits in 4 ⅓ innings.
