CAMROSE AXEMEN DISAPPOINTING SEASON COMES TO AN END
Posted August 16, 2016
The Camrose Axemen finished their 2016 North Central Alberta Baseball League season with a forfeit loss on August 9 to the Stony Plain Mets ending their four year run of making the playoffs. They finished 9-9 and on the season putting them in sixth place in the standings as they struggled with player commitment and availability for most of the season, leading to two forfeit losses.
The Axemen started the 2016 season strong, defeating the Edmonton Athletics on Opening Day 2-0 and the Edmonton Primeaus 3-1 behind strong pitching performances from Blair Mulder and first year player Shawn Noble. Noble, an Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia native, had a no-hitter broken up with one out in the seventh inning against his former team the Edmonton Primeaus to make a great impression on his new teammates and management. The season began to take a turn for the worse during the home opener against the Edmonton Blackhawks on May 18. The Axemen would fall 20-0 against the perennial NCABL powerhouse Blackhawks allowing a total of twenty hits including a pair of home runs in what would become the largest loss in Axemen franchise history dating back to 2008. Twice more the Axemen would suffer some of the largest defeats in the team’s existence, falling 19-0 to the defending NCABL Champion Red Lions on Father’s Day in Westlock and a 22-5 loss to the Stony Plain Mets on the road, a team the Axemen swept in the NCABL Semi-Finals in 2015.
Key players were lost for the Axemen during the off season with the likes of Dylan Borman, Chance Wheatley, Riley Guntrip, Dennis Landriault and Cory Martz all moving on. Borman and Wheatley would spend the summer suiting up for the Yorkton Cardinals of the summer collegiate Western Major Baseball League while Guntrip would make the most of a ten day contact with the Victoria Harbourcats of the West Coast League and turn it into a summer in which he would be a part of a historic forty win season. Veteran catcher Dennis Landriault would head back to the Edmonton Athletics of the NCABL, a team he spent time with prior to joining the Axemen in 2012 with Martz moving on due to work and spending his summer with the Heisler Cardinals of the Battle River Baseball League. They were five key cogs in the success that the Axemen had experienced from 2012 through 2015 both with their on field play as well as their consistency and dedication throughout their playing career in a working man’s league.
Blair Mulder would be named the Camrose Axemen MVP in 2016 due to his production at the plate as well as on the mound. When the left-hander from Lacombe was on the mound the Axemen would have a chance to win as Mulder would once again prove to be a top pitcher in the NCABL going 5-1 on the year, second only to Westlock’s Kris Johnson’s 6-1 record, and with a 1.97 earned run average, the fourth lowest ERA in the NCABL. Mulder would strike out 62 in 42.67 innings, second only to the Edmonton Blackhawks All-Star lefty Kyle Lawrence who struck out 66 in 43.33 innings. In what turned out to be the Axemen’s last game of the season on July 27 against the St Albert Cardinals, Mulder would be absolutely dominant for the Axemen striking out seventeen including seven in a row at one point. Both of these accomplishments would become new Axemen franchise records.
Offensively the Axemen struggled as the once powerful lineup that would seemingly score at will over the past four seasons, never seemed to string enough offence together either in a game or over the course of multiple games, to be effective. Once again player availability and commitment troubles contributed to the frustrating performance as the team was able to only schedule one practice during the course of the 2016 season and batting was not an option due to the lack of proper safety equipment at the diamond at the start of the season. The Axemen would hit a combined .264 in 2016, the lowest team batting average since 2010 when they would hit .221 and finish 7-10-1 in the NCABL season. The team’s on base percentage of .370 was also the lowest since .332 during the 2010 season as well. The seventy one runs scored by the Axemen during the regular season were the lowest since they scored fifty during the sixteen game 2009 season and it also broke the streak of five consecutive seasons with one hundred or more runs scored by the offence which peaked at one hundred and fifty seven runs scored during the 2014 season. Both forfeit losses by the Axemen in 2016 count as 7-0 losses.
Once again Blair Mulder would lead the way for the Axemen offensively hitting .415 with an on base percentage of .520 over fifty plate appearances in 2016. Mulder would lead the team in both hits with seventeen and stolen bases with five while finishing tied for first in runs batted in with second baseman Ryan Petryshyn and outfielder Kris Kushnerick with eight a piece. Mulder would showcase his offensive talents on June 1 when the Axemen would defeat the Sturgeon Paladins 22-1 in Bon Accord. Mulder would finish the game six for seven with three singles, three doubles, five runs batted in and four runs scored.
The Axemen’s representatives at the annual NCABL All Star Game, and selected by Manager Adam Sawatzky of the Westlock Red Lions, were outfielder Jordan Riopel and catcher Kris Johnson. Both players would produce for the Axemen offensively and were very deserving of the all star game selection. This was Johnson’s first career All Star trip while Riopel had previously been voted a starter for the All Star team in 2008 and 2014.
Another positive for the Axemen in 2016 was the addition of midget aged players Ryan Burton, Zach Willms, Jacob Kendall and Kyler Kupka to the team. Over the last few seasons the Axemen have made attempts to find younger players to fill in for the aging core of the team that still had ties to the Armena Axemen and the Powerline Baseball League dating back to 2002. The Axemen are excited at the prospect of working with the Camrose Minor Baseball Association moving forward to help ensure that graduating midgets who wish to continue to play baseball will have an opportunity to do so in their own community.
It will be a busy off season for the Axemen as they are expected to work the recruiting trails heavily looking for ball players who are interested in playing in 2017 and helping the team get back to the level of success that baseball fans were recently accustomed to seeing. After all, despite the roster uncertainty most nights this season the Axemen still finished 9-9 on the season in the competitive NCABL and just three games back of a playoff spot.
For more information on the Camrose Axemen and the upcoming 2017 North Central Alberta Baseball League season please contact them at camroseaxemen@hotmail.com or look for them on Facebook and Twitter.