Goldmine; Lakeland Layouts take gold at provincials

Hosting the provincial finals is a ton of work, but it’s all worth it when you make it to the final game and win the gold medal. The Lakeland Layouts did just that.

 Winning three out of four games in the round robin, sending them to the semi finals. Then defeating the only team that had beaten them in the round robin, Calgary in the semi-final to go on and meet Lac La Biche Dodgers in the gold medal game.

The Layouts had defeated the Dodgers once already in the tournament, during the round robin. It was a repeat performance in the finals, as the Lakeland Layouts secured the win.

Great job by Darc’y Evans and Kelly Radcliffe and our minor ball president Dennell Anderson for bringing this tournament to Elk Point, and to all the players and parents who worked the concession and score keeping. A special thank you to the ground crew Sunday morning after the rain making the fields playable for the day.

This team has the brand new car smell to it. The brand new start up team, the Midget Sox  played in their very first round robin games in Elk Point this past weekend at Bassett Field.

It’s been seven full years since Elk Point fielded a Midget baseball team. But with determination and hard work from Cory McLean and Dean Rogal they recruited players from all around the Lakeland area and entered into the A division of Baseball Alberta Provincials that starts in the month of July. The team will play two weekends of round robin and then the provincial final on the weekend of July 27th.

In their first game this past weekend at home they were down early to the Parkland Twins 9-1 after the third inning. Not ready to throw in the towel, they started a big rally and scored six runs in the bottom of the fourth. Teh rally wasn’t enough to take the win. The team ran out of time( after some discussion about a game time limit)  losing 10-7.

Brothers, Carson & Jackson Livingstone, Noah Saskiw, Luke Grunder and Bradley Urlacher all hitting with a single each.

The second game on Saturday lead off batter, Andre Proctor Rameriz, cranking an in the park home runs. Plus he hit two singles and took a walk going four for four at the plate. ‘King Cole’ Bendixen came in with two singles. The game tied six all after six innings, the Sox taking the lead. The King coming in as the closer, also pitched an awesome seventh inning to shut down the Chestermere Crushers.

Their third game got going Sunday morning after an hour and half rain delay and some drying work by the ground crew that included the umpires Conrad Pierce and Ryan Yopyk who pitched in to help. The boys winning this one with the ten run mercy rule after five innings.

Brad Urlacher with a triple, Charlie ‘Chuckles’ Rogal, Luke Grunder, Mark Livingstone and Noah Saskiw each with a single. Owen Cleland coming in on relief doing a nice job of throwing strikes in this one. Matthew Beaudette pitching the complete game for the Sox in the second game on Sunday against the Parkland Twins had ten strikeouts and allowed no runs.

This coming weekend the Sox will travel to Chestermere for the second round of provincials.

The Northstars headed to Chestermere to playoff against the best team in Alberta the 12-0 Olds Spitfires. It was a close game until the forth inning and then Olds started cranking the ball.  A few errors against a team like that and its game over. After the loss to Olds the boys were faced with another team that has played them tough all year.

They were to meet Grande Prairie Reds at 6:00pm but the game was called due to lightning. The game was played Sunday morning at 9am. As usual it was a tight back and forth game, a great pitching duel. Down 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh, the Northstars scored two big runs for the walk off 5-4 win. A much needed win that took a little pressure off the team.

For the final game of the weekend we played the Castor Raiders. The game was fairly close until our bats woke up in the 4th inning and we pulled away with 12-5 win. Another great weekend of ball for the boys who continue to play great against tough competition. We will be hosting a Provincial game against Wainwright at Wilson Field in the next couple weeks, be sure to swing in and catch some great ball.

Last weekend, Rylee ‘the Rocket’ Warawa and Kaylee ‘Big Bird’ Radcliffe  playing in the Provincial finals with the Bonnyville Angels in Castor made it all the way to  the final game before the rain hit too hard to finish. The decision from Softball Alberta was the two teams, Bonnyville and Castor  would meet in Vermilion on this past Thursday night to play the final game. The host Castor winning the Gold the Angels winning Silver. A little disappointing at first not winning the Gold but a Silver medal is still a big deal when six or eight other teams didn’t make it to the finals.