The Yorkton AA Mosquito Cardinals Baseball team completed their season at the Saskatchewan Baseball Association (SBA) provincial finals July 15- 17 in Swift Current.
According to team coach Larry Kitchen, things were not looking so good back when the baseball season began.
"The successful season began with interest very low to compete in the Regina Baseball division with only five players committing to play in this league. A compromise was made to have interested players move up into an older Pee Wee division to compete in the Parkland Baseball division."
With nine mosquito age players along with a handful of Pee Wee age boys; this team lost in the league final to the Yorkton-2 baseball team, 11-10 .
The Mosquito AA team competed in the Melville AAA tournament.
Playing with only 10 players for most of the weekend, the team played against the top AAA teams from Regina and Saskatoon.
In their first game, they played against the Regina White Sox.
With the score at 4-2 for Regina in the bottom of the fifth inning, Regina was able to score six runs to break the game wide open. The second game of the weekend was against the winners of the Saskatoon league, the Saskatoon A's.
In a very tight defensive game, the A's came away winner by a 5-3 count. The third game of the tournament placed the Cardinals against the Saskatoon Braves.
Another tight game, this one saw the Cardinals apply the tomahawk chop with a 6-3 victory over the Braves, thanks in no small part to the strong pitching from Reid Perepeluk in relief.
The win gave the Cardinals third place in their pool.Sunday morning saw an enormous pitching display by Gregor Farquharson. Farquharson pitched all four innings against the Regina Little League All-stars and struck out 12 batters in a shortened game in which the mercy rule came into play and the game was stopped.
Offensively, the Cardinals were led by Braden Kitchen who went 3-3 at the plate and Jordan Repsch who had a three-run home run in the bottom of the first inning.
This placed Yorkton into the 'B' final against the Saskatoon Braves. The Cardinals came out quickly, scoring five runs in the bottom of the first inning, but the strong Braves pitching shut down the Yorkton bats for the remainder of the game while their team responded with a 9-5 Braves win.
"Still an excellent display on the Cardinals behalf," says coach Kitchen.
The July 15-17 weekend saw the Yorkton AA Mosquito Cardinals participate in the Saskatchewan Mosquito AA provincials held in Swift Current.
The Cardinals opened with an uncharacteristic lacklustre performance on Friday's opening game against Lloydminster, said Kitchen.
Dylan Novak started on the mound followed by Tanner Melnychuk and Reid Arnold.
Lloydminster prevailed with a 13-3 win. Saturday proved to be the day the Cardinals turned things around, said coach Kitchen.
Their first game of the day was against the Cardinals against the Martensville Mustangs. Novak was given the ball once again for the Cardinals for just over two innings. He was relieved by Brett Kemp, who totally dominated the Mustangs batting order the rest of the way. Final score: Yorkton 15, Mustangs 5.
Offensively, the Cards were lead by Braden Kitchen, who finished 3-3 at the plate. Keenan Taphorn belted a key two-run double.
This win gave the Cardinals home field advantage in their next game, which would be played against the same Martensville team.
The importance of this game was that the winner would move directly into Sunday's semi-final while the loser would be relegated to play against Lloydminster team, says coach Kitchen.
This would definitely be a strain on any team, as it would be the third game of the day.The Mustangs came out hard against the Cardinals starter Farquharson.
According to coach Kitchen, this game did not take long to get everybody's attention.
"A turning point in the game came very early in the top of the first inning with two Mustang runners on base and two out. A hard line-drive was hit to right field but the Cardinals right fielder Reid Arnold made an unbelievable over-the-shoulder 'ice-cream cone' catch to stuff out the Mustang attack."
The defence was solid throughout the game for the Cards, says Kitchen. To maintain the pitch count and have pitchers available for Sunday's semi-finals, the team took advantage of several arms to get them through. Farquharson's, both Taphorns' and Perepeluk's. Each pitched 25 pitches each and they closed out the game with Braden Kitchen.
Offensively, the Cards were led by Farquharson who hit both a triple and a double, Jordan Repsch (triple) and Reid Arnold who broke the game wide open with a timely RBI single.
"Third-base coach Monte Taphorn had the Martensville (batting order) off balance with calling for aggressive base-stealing and timely bunting," adds coach Kitchen. Final score: Yorkton 7, Martensville 1 .
With the Saturday's win, the Yorkton Cardinals placed second in their pool and were forced to play the Swift Current Indians.
The Tribe finished in first place in the other pool. "This game was undoubtedly the best game of the tournament," explains coach Kitchen.
The Cardinals opened the scoring in the top of the first inning with runs scored by Braden Kitchen, Keenan Taphorn and Farquharson. Farquharson started on the mound and shut down the Indians for just under two innings when the opponents scored one run in the bottom of the second inning and two more in the bottom of the third.
A scoreless tie continued into three extra innings, until the Indians scored one run in the bottom of the ninth inning to claim the win.
Farquharson pitched almost five innings and was then relieved by Keenan Taphorn who went the distance.
Coach Kitchen insisted that by this time in the tournament, crowd interest in these games was really becoming evident and level of the games may have intensified.
"The interest in the game was evident as crowds increased around the diamond with every extra played. The Swift Current coach commented to Yorkton that this game was probably the A-Final game."
Swift Current claimed the provincial title with a 15-2 win over Weyburn .
In finishing, coach Kitchen says that he hopes that the players' interest in baseball has peaked to a point that they will want to continue in the years to come.
"Hopes are that the core of these Mosquito players continue to participate in baseball and hopefully can bring a Pee Wee title back to Yorkton."
The team coaching staff was rounded out by Monte Taphorn, Greg Andreychuk and Rick Perepeluk.
