The Unity Cardinals are Baseball Saskatchewan 18U AA Tier 4 provincial champions, going through the provincial tournament round robin pool play and playoffs undefeated. The teens’ pitching and fielding was exceptional, only allowing a total of 12 runs in five games.
The Cardinals, hosts of the championships, started their run with a July 26 opening win over the Weyburn Warhawks, 7-4, and then beat the Saskatoon Blue Jay Thunder 11-1 and the Tisdale Rangers 7-2 on July 27 to end up at the top of their pool.
Playoff Sunday saw the Cards up against the Esterhazy Cyclones in an exciting semifinal, which saw the Cyclones score three runs in the top of the fourth to pull within two of what had been a 5-0 lead.
The 5-3 score held until the bottom of the fifth when the Cards were able to score six, thanks to a combination of walks, stolen bases and base hits. With a final score of 11-3, the hometown team moved on to the gold medal game.
The Meadow Lake Sox had also finished at the top of their pool, and moved on to the final by beating Weyburn in the semis. Their round robin runs for and against record, 56 and 40, was quite a different statistic from the Cardinals’ 25 and 7.
The top of the batting order for each team, ML’s Quinn Soulsby and Unity’s Zayden Wagner (on an RBI by Jayden Blanchette), made it around the bases to make the score 1-1 at the end of the first. Zayden scored again, stealing home on a wild pitch, in the bottom of the second, to make it 2-1 in favour of the Cardinals.
The Sox ran out of pitching strength and the Cards were able to put up a total of 13 runs by the end of the fourth. The game was called and the Unity Cardinals were the champions after the top of the fifth when Meadow Lake was unable to get a hit to move past an 11-run deficit, the final score being 13-2 for Unity.
Zayden Wagner pitched the final while Nick Hein went the distance in the semifinal. Ethan Bertoia had an especially hot bat in the last game, bringing home three runs in the third and two in the fourth as well as ultimately getting home both times himself.
The community showed great support for their hometown team during the playoffs, with the bleachers full and the south and west fences lined with spectators.
