U18 AA Braves claim Silver in Provincials

The Bonnyville AA U18 Braves were off to a co-hosted Acme / Calgary finals this past weekend for the Provincial final tournament. With an eight-team tournament and two pools of four, the top two teams in each pool move on to play in the semi-finals on Sunday. The Braves went into the tournament as the #3 seed. You need to go 2-1 to have a shot to play on Sunday.

Game 1 of the Round Robin

The first game was on Friday at 9 am in Acme against the Coronation Royals.  The game started out great as the big unit, Carter Goreniuk, pitched 3 shutout innings with 5 Ks (strikeouts)and left the game with his 40 pitches used, giving the Braves a 5-0 lead.  In the Friday game, a team coaching staff, due to the pitch count rules, will typically try and pitch their players to 40 to save them for Saturday if needed.  The Braves followed this plan, but it doesn’t always work out if the pitchers have a little trouble getting rolling.  The Braves went to the bullpen for Colin Reardon, who came in second and chucked the ball well, but the defense definitely did not help him, making multiple errors and costing the Braves several runs.  Andrew Haxby made a couple of nice plays in right field to help keep the game close, but everything that could go wrong decidedly did go wrong, and the Braves dropped the first game 11-9.  Definitely a game the Braves should have won, but if you don’t have the whole team playing well, you can’t expect to win.  Losing the first game is not ideal and makes the next 2 games must-win. The mighty Casey Warawa was named game MVP.

 

Saturday Game Play

The Braves moved camp to Airdrie for Saturday and played the next 2 games in Calgary at the Calgary Cubs field.  The first game was against the Calgary Cubs at 9 am.  With the provincial rules for tiebreakers, you need to score as many runs as possible to try and win the run differential in case of a 3-way tie.  Well, the Braves came out firing on all cylinders. Casey Warawa took to the mound and completely dominated the Cubs hitters, pitching 4 shutout innings with only 40 pitches and striking out 7 batters.  Owen Tibbets got on base and scored a run to help the Braves keep the pressure on.  The Braves crushed the ball, scoring 27 runs over the 5-inning mercy rule game.  Colin Reardon came in to close out the game and shut down the Cubs with 1 strike out in the final inning.  The Braves walked away with a much needed 27-0 win.   Carter Goreniuk was named game MVP.

 

 

Next up was the #2 Seed Calgary Bucks at 6 pm on Saturday.  The Braves had lost a tough one to the Bucks earlier in the year, so revenge was on the Braves’ minds.  A must win game to have a chance to play on Sunday.  The Braves turned to Carter Goreniuk to take the mound and he did not disappoint.  Carter pitched a complete 5-inning game with 5 K’s and only allowed 7ER (earned runs).  Carter also helped his cause hitting an amazing 4 triples this game (never seen that before).  Cody Archibald made some nice plays at third and hit the ball hard all weekend, scoring 4 RBI in the game.  The Braves continued to pound the ball and ended up winning the game 32-12.  With the win and a +45 run differential, it put the Braves in 1st place in the pool and set them up for a much-anticipated rematch against the undefeated SJP team that had beaten them earlier in the year. Carter Goreniuk was named game MVP.

 

The Braves headed back to Acme for the Sunday semi-finals against SJP at high noon.  The Braves turned the game over to Casey Warawa, and he pitched the best game of his career, holding a hard-hitting Jays team to 5 runs over 5.1 innings with 6 Ks, The mighty Casey was also the team’s leadoff hitter for the weekend and had a great weekend at the plate.  The Braves were up 7-5 after 5 innings after some great hitting by Zach Lapointe, who also is the team’s catcher and caught 4 of 5 games and did a fantastic job all year calling the games.  The Braves turned to closer Cadogan Rachynski to shut down the Jays.  With 1 out and the bases loaded the Jays hit a liner to left field, Jaxon Gauthier made a terrific diving catch and fired the ball into third base to complete the double play, inning over Jaxon also had a double and cashed in a run in the game. Colton Lacoursiere, who held down shortstop all weekend, making several nice plays and also coming up with some timely hits to cash in runs for the Braves, helped keep the game close.  Into the 7 inning, with the score 7-5 and runners on second and third, Cadogan came up with a huge strikeout and is now 2 out.  The Jays were able to line a base hit up the middle to score two runs, however after a great heads up play by Zach Lapointe after taking narrowly missing the throw out at home plate Zach fired the ball back to third to catch the runner trying to stretch the double into a triple, ending the threat.  Bottom of the 7^th game tied 7-7.  The Braves needed to end this game and did not want to see extra innings.  The Braves were able to get the first 2 base runners aboard to set the table for a big ending.  1 out away, runners on first and second and up to bat was first year Dane Archibald.  Dane had worked his way into a starter on the team with his great defence at first base and had really started to hit the ball well in the last few weeks.  He delivered a line drive base hit to centerfield and to score the winning run and for the walk off victory 8-7 and a chance to play for Gold. Casey Warawa was named game MVP.

 

Gold Medal Game

A great game and a big win; however, the Gold Medal Game was scheduled for 3 pm, so that meant the dreaded back-to-back game for the Braves on a hot Sunday afternoon.  The Braves put Cadogan Rachynski back on the mound since he only threw 25 pitches to close out the first game he was available for the finals.  The Braves faced a very tough Edmonton Angels team who had 10 runs every team on the weekend.  The Angels were a hard hitting and great pitching team.  Cadogan was up for the challenge and pitched a great 4.1 innings allowing only 4 runs and striking out 4.  It was a very close game with great pitching and defence by both teams.  Several beautiful double plays and a game with very few errors.  The way a final should be.  The game was 4-4 when Cody Archibald came in and got two huge outs for the Braves to keep the game tied.  The Braves were able to get back on top 6-4 in the 5^th inning.  In the 6^th inning, the Braves turned to Sam Atwal to get some timely outs.  Sam delivered, getting the Braves out of a jam, and Sam also hit the ball hard all weekend long.  The Braves did relinquish the lead 7-6 going into the top of the 7^th.  It was at this point the better Angels team started to show their depth.  The Braves started to run into some pitching trouble, and the hard-hitting Angels team took advantage.  The Braves put up a good fight but ultimately ended up losing the Gold Medal game to a very good Angels team 13-8. Cadogan Rachynski was named game MVP.

It was a great gold medal game, not the ending they were hoping for, but overall, it was a great weekend of baseball. A team never feels like it wins silver, but it was a huge accomplishment for the team. They were missing several older players on the weekend, and they brought it all together to play some great baseball.

The team says Goodbye to Graduating Players

The Braves will be losing fourth-year catcher Zach Lapointe, Shortstop Colton Lacoursiere, Third Baseman Cody Archibald, and Lefty Ethan Walgren. They were all huge parts of the Braves teams over the years and will be missed. Good luck to the boys in their future aspirations.