Cardinals Take Home SILVER at the 2017 RCBA Queen Victoria Invitational

Posted May 26, 2017


Cardinals Take Home SILVER at the 2017 RCBA Queen Victoria Invitational

As the Cardinals predicted they would get either Delta or Okotoks in the semis, pick your poison. Who would take home gold...would it be the returning tourney champs from last year (Delta), the team that won it all two years ago in the all Alberta final but ousted in a nail-biting semifinal last year (Okotoks), the hometown team who couldn't get overcome Euerby and the Tigers in last year's final (Richmond) or the inaugural team from Vancouver/Coquitlam (West Coast).

 

Delta 2 CARDINALS 4 (Semi-Final)

Frick's Tigers and Yam's Cardinals a "friendly" rivalry that will hopefully be seen in semi-final and final games to come this year, both teams being top Bantam AAA teams this year in BC. Both clubs possessing a potent pitching staff, a forceful middle of the batting order and elite calibre defense. McIntosh got the start for Delta, "Apple" as they call him has arguably been the top pitcher on the Delta staff coming into Monday's action the big righty had a 5-0 record. McIntosh would have to navigate a tough left-handed heavy lineup and was opposed by Yuen who was 8-0 to start the season. It was bound to be a good one.

Yuen would start the top of the 1st by getting leadoff Tiger McCarthy to ground out to second on the first pitch of the ballgame, the two big boppers in the Tigers' lineup Euerby and McIntosh would both strikeout looking sandwiching a Thomas' walk. McIntosh retired leadoff hitter Turnbull on strikes in a 6 pitch at-bat, Sugi was barely thrown out at 1st on a phenomenal backhand play by Euerby at SS from the hole for the second out of the inning. Yuen would softly drop a single into RF for West Coast's first hit and baserunner of the ballgame, the base hit would become moot as Baybay would fly out deep to Richards in left for the final out of the 1st. 0-0 after 1.

The second inning saw Warkentin leadoff the inning with a walk on 4 straight pitches, with runs coming at a premium in this contest Frick elected to have back-to-back Delta batters sacrifice the run to third, with 2 outs and Heppner now up, Heppner would groundout to Baybay at third for the final out of the half stranding Warkentin at 3rd. Powell would get things going for the Cardinals in the bottom of the second, with 1 out #9 wearing the digital whites would go take the McIntosh fastball to RF for a single. A fake steal had Tiger catcher, Heppner take his eye off the ball for a second as Powell would advance to second on the pass ball. 7-hitter New would hit a single putting runners on the corners with 1 out. Crozier would be next up as the "Tiger Killer" who threw a gem against Delta the last time these two teams met, would burn them with his bat this time as the #6 hitting from the left-handed batters box would jump on the first pitch he saw from McIntosh pulling it into right Powell would score with ease from 3rd while New would score all the way from 1st, Crozier tried to stretch the double into a triple but was hosed at 3, but received a big "high five" from Yam and all his teammates as the Cards were now up 2-0 after 2.

The bottom of the third saw the Cardinals tack on another run, Turnbull would hit the ball hard while Sugi followed suit with a hard grounder to the left side putting two runners on and none out. 3-hitter Yuen would be next up and with an intended SAC the ball would tip off his bat and hit him in the chin, the aforementioned Yuen would go down on strikes fro the 1st out of the inning. Baybay would be walked to load the bases and 1 out for Hendriks. Hendriks would sky a shallow fly to McCarthy in right, but Yam wouldn't let Powell challenge the throw home as the throw was spot-on by McCarthy leaving it to Powell with 2 outs. Powell worked the count full, with 3 runners all in motion with the pitch McIntosh elected to throw curveball and it was a good one, curveball locked Powell up but lucky for him crossed the plate outside of the strike zone resulting in a crucial bases loaded walk, which ended up plating the eventual go-ahead and winning run. Delta was irate from the pitch that was called a ball, but McIntosh would settle down by getting New to ground out to end the threat. 3-0 after 3.

Yuen who was feeling the effects of the bunt off the chin, went down 3 balls no strikes to McIntosh to lead off the inning but would fight the pain as McIntosh would watch 2 fastballs go by for strikes, foul off the 3rd fastball then watch fastball #4 by him for go down for his second time looking that game. 5 pitches to Warkentin and Richards combined is all it took to retire the side in order. Crozier would lead off the offensive 4th for the Cardinals with his second hit of the day, Suzuki executing a SAC bunt to move him to second, Turnbull would pop up to the Tiger shortstop as Crozier was still on second with 2 out now. With first base open, Frick and the Delta coaching staff elected not to intentionally walk Sugi but rather face him, with 2 strikes on Sugi, it seemed Frick, Heppner and McIntosh got crossed up on pitch selection and Sugi laced an outside fastball towards the left-field foul line just out the reach of a sprawling Richards in left to make it 4-0 Cards after 4.

Yuen would work around a leadoff single by Wegner and get leadoff hitter McCarthy to line out to Crozier at second base for the final out of the 5th. Euerby, Thomas and McIntosh due up at the top of the 6th. The Cardinals would strand Baybay at 2nd after his leadoff double as the score remained 4-0 after 5. With Euerby going down on strikes his first two plate appearances and one strike away from the hat trick, Yuen would make his first mistake of the ballgame as Euerby would line the 0-2 mistake to left to lead off the inning. Thomas would ground out for the frist out the inning. With Euerby now on second, McIntosh would spark the Tigers bench by jumping on the first pitch and driving it to deep left that just tipped off the glove of Symons for a double. Warkentin with walk putting runners on the corners now and 1 out, Richards now up. Richards would knock a base hit up the middle as Frick aggressively tried to challenge Sugi's arm in centre, Warkentin was thrown out trying to go first to third on a bullet by Sugi to Baybay for the 2nd out of the inning and arguably the turning the momentum back to the Cardinals. Wegner would fly out to Sugi for the 3rd out of the inning, 4-2 Cardinals after 6 innings.

3 outs from a splot in the finals, Euerby (Delta's two hitter) looming in the double hole, Yuen and the Cards knew they needed to face the minimum this inning to avoid bringing the "Big 3" to the plate, Yuen would get 8 batter Heppner to fly out, 9 batter Oleson to ground out. Yuen had finally hit his pitch count limit, simply amazing once again through injury the first-year gave a performance like no other. Taking no risks, Yam went to Sugi to close it out as it would take Sugi 2 pitches to retire leadoff Tiger McCarthy, a shallow fly out to newly inserted left-fielder Fukuoka for the final out of the ballgame. 

GAME MVP: #11 Max Yuen

6 2/3 innings pitched in 95 pitches, 2 R, 4 H, 5 K

 

Okotoks 8 CARDINALS (Gold Final)

The Cardinals were pumped up and ready to go for gold, knowing full well that they were about to face their toughest test of the season thus far. The first two innings went by quick and didn’t supply much offence. Starting pitcher Crozier allowed only one of the first six batters he faced to reach base, a one-out double in the first that was soon erased on a caught stealing at third. The Cards went 6-up, 6-down in their first couple of at-bats, the top three collecting a hat-trick of strikeouts. In the top of the 3rd, the first two batters reached on a single and a walk, then moved into scoring position on a pass ball. The #9 hitter sent a groundball to second that scored the first runner and advanced the second runner to third. The Okotoks pitcher, Asuchak, was then retired on strikes, bringing the top of the order back up with two out. The elite Albertan squad then strung together 4 straight hits that pushed 3 more runs across, before the third out was made on a flyout to centre field. Following this inning, the Cardinals were visibly shell shocked and struggling to keep their composure. Never before had they encountered a juggernaut offence like the one Okotoks possesses, and they would have no time to waste in getting something going so they could muster some sort of hope. Unfortunately, the Cards were simply overmatched in this one. They went down in order once again in their half of the 3rd, then gave up 3 more in the top of the 4th, falling behind 7-0. Crozier was pulled after allowing a leadoff walk to come around and score on a double down the left field line, giving way to Kang, who tossed a fantastic 3 complete innings of relief. The deficit was already too much for the Cards’ bats to come back from, as they didn’t manage a single base-runner until Powell broke up Asuchak’s perfect game with an infield single in the 5th. The Cardinals’ only other base-runner in the game was Sugi, keeping his unbelievable hit streak intact with a single through the right side to lead off the bottom of the 7th. Okotoks added one additional run in “garbage time” in the top of the 7th, as the Cards’ settled for silver in an anti-climactic final, an 8-0 shutout loss.



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