ESTEVAN - The Estevan U15 AA Brewers made it to the final of the Western Canada Baseball Championships in Estevan.
The Brewers lost 9-0 to Alberta's Stettler Storm in the tournament's final Sunday afternoon at Mel Murray Cactus Park in Estevan. Stettler scored three times in the first inning and five times in the third to take an 8-0 lead, and then added one more in the sixth.
Still, it was an impressive showing for an Estevan team that had players from across the province, and only practised together for the first time on Wednesday.
Estevan opened the tournament with a 4-3 win over B.C.'s South Island Royals. Then they faced Stettler for the first time and lost 10-6.
But Estevan responded with a 9-6 win over the Saskatchewan representatives, the Weyburn Beavers, and 8-7 over Midwest from Manitoba. The game against Midwest came down to the wire, and Estevan notched the winning run in the seventh and final inning.
If Midwest would have won, they would have faced Stettler in the final.
In the U18 division, B.C.'s Vancouver Community Mounties knocked off Manitoba's Elmwood Giants 3-1. Elmwood was undefeated in the round robin, while Vancouver punched their ticket to the final in the last round-robin game, an 8-0 win over the host Estevan Aero Advertising U18 Brewers.
The U18 Brewers went 2-2 in the tournament. They lost 4-3 to Elmwood in the opener, but then they beat the Saskatchewan representatives, the Assiniboia Aces, 11-2, and Alberta's Edmonton Padres 13-4. Then they lost to Vancouver in their last game.
The next edition of the Mercury will have more on this story.
