Pankiw impresses at Nationals

We showcased  Dustyn ‘ Dust Pan’ Pankiw  last week. He was up in Fort McMurray this past weekend at the National U18 with the St. Albert Cardinals winning 5 out of six games in the round robin. On the first day they lost to Etobicoke Ontario 2 to 1 and then defeated the host Fort McMurray 3 to 2 in the evening right after the opening ceremonies.

Day two they defeated Nova Scotia 9 to 8. Day three they beat Manitoba 10 to 2 and then British Columbia 12 2  sending them to the semi final game against London Ontario on Sunday morning. That must have been quite the game the Cardinals losing 1 to 0.

The Cardinals had runners on base a number of times with none out but couldn’t bring them home. After the semi final game they played against Quebec in the Bronze medal game, but unfortunately lost again, coming in forth spot overall. Considering the competition, forth overall is still pretty darn good. Dusty playing center field would gain some tremendous experience against some of the very best U18 players in Canada.

Another local kid and former Elk Point Sox player, Kaiden ‘K Rock’ Evans Anderson competed this past weekend. He spent the summer playing with the Lloydminster Pirates a Saskatchewan AAA Midget team. They played a few weeks ago in their Provincial final and took the silver medal.

First place in the province goes on to the Nationals in Fort McMurray, his team was at Westerns finals in Manitoba. Getting the call from the bullpen, K Rock was on the mound, doing some relief pitching, in their first game that they won against the host team Manitoba. The rest of the weekend he played field.

Too bad he wasn’t able to chuck in the other games, maybe the outcome would have been better.  The Pirates losing their other games against Alberta and B.C.  All of their games were close, in fact the score was 1 to 0 in the last game they played. If they could have pushed in a couple of runs they would have made it to the semi final and who knows from there.