It was our time to shine

Others may have questioned his decision, but head coach Tyler Warawa never doubted for a minute that his team was better than the Baseball Alberta office had seeded them in the month of July. He pleaded with them to be moved up one tier for the provincial finals. He had faith in this team that they could play at a higher level. He knew that it would be better to be challenged, then to win every game by a ten run mercy. It makes you a better team in the end even if you don’t win the games or the championship.

The Baseball Alberta office finally listened and it’s a good thing they did because his Lakeland Northstars won the provincial silver medal in Bantam AA tier # 5 Sunday evening in St. Albert.

The boys were really jacked up after winning their first game on Saturday against Sylvan Lake in a dramatic matter. Down 4 runs in the top of the six, they put on the rally caps and scored 6 runs taking the lead. Bottom of the 7th, the Northstars now holding on to a one run lead with two out and two runners on base, the centerfielder would make a spectacular catch to end the game. At the end of the game Tyler would tell me this was the greatest game they had played all year, but he wasn’t sure his heart could take another one like that!

Their second game against Hanna didn’t go quite as well as planned. Trying to save some pitchers due to the pitch count rule to use for the next day, and still hold a 9 to 8 lead they ran into some trouble and lost this one in the final inning. But, because of the runs for and against they had a better record and still managed to make it into the semi final the next day.

The semi was against the Calgary Grizzles, a team that had defeated by 10 runs the weekend before. But not this time. The Northstars would play another great game winning 11 to 8  sending them to the finals against the host St. Albert.

The final was immediately after their semi-final, with no breaks in between the games. They had very little left in the tank, but still managed to hold a lead into the 5th inning. That’s when they finally powered out, losing the game.

Winning the silver medal is quite an accomplishment for a team that wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. Head coach Tyler Warawa winning his very first provincial medal as a skipper.

Our little Mosquitoes team played in the provincial final, as well this past weekend in Rocky Mountain House . They won two out of four games but not enough to reach the finals. The Sox didn’t come home with any medals but still had a ton of fun and learned lots about baseball.  And the good thing is these guys will be together for many more years. Kale ‘the Hawk’ Ockerman, Raif ‘Rug Rat’ Evans Anderson, Madden ‘Mad dog’ Flamand and Koltin Davies were named MVP of the games of the four games they played.