The Estevan Sherritt Coal Haulers fell short in their bid for a bantam AA provincial baseball championship this past weekend in Yorkton, but Monday none of that seemed to matter.Instead of dwelling on Sunday's 8-4 semifinal loss to the eventual champions from Swift Current, the topic of discussion was still Saturday's wild 10-9 extra-innings win over the Lloydminster Twins."That game against Lloyd was probably the most exciting game I've ever been a part of and I told the boys after that they'll probably never be involved in a game like that again," said Haulers head coach Mason Schick.The wheels appeared to be falling off the Haulers' wagon when the Twins, trailing 6-3, chased Estevan pitchers Lucas Lafrentz and Jolan Lingelbach from the game as part of a six-run fifth inning.Enter Calder Clark, who had only thrown one inning in the Haulers' previous two tournament games."He told me 'Coach, I'm nervous, I don't think I can do it,' but he went out and did it," said Schick.Clark forced the Twins into five ground outs, six fly outs, and one double play as the Haulers kept the Twins off the scoreboard the rest of the way.Connor Mack, Kale Little, and Garrett Fitzpatrick scored for Estevan as the Haulers tied the game in the sixth.Then in the bottom of the ninth Tanner Odgers, who had injured his tailbone sliding on a stolen base attempt in the fourth, led off for Estevan with a walk.Barely able to walk by that point, Odgers was replaced on base by the seldom-used Mike Fischer.Lingelbach and Lafrentz both walked, pushing Fischer to third. Fischer, in his first year of AA ball at any level, told Schick he would score and stayed true to his word when he crossed home plate on an Austin Orsted single for the win."The look on his face when he stepped on home plate, that was something special to be around," said Schick.The Haulers opened the tournament with a 5-3 win over the Martensville Mustangs and followed that Saturday morning with a 6-5 loss to Prince Albert.Sunday's semifinal was marked by the 10 runners Estevan left on base. The Haulers loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth inning and one out in the seventh but could only manage one run out of either situation.Down 8-1, the late-game rally in that game started and ended with Lingelbach's three-run homer in the seventh.And with that the Haulers' season came to an end. They will not participate in their Baseball Regina bantam AAA league playoffs this coming weekend."From where they started to where they finished, especially with a 10-game losing streak two weeks before provincials, and then to go in and have an undefeated weekend the weekend before, and play pretty much four great games at provincials, that's pretty much the best turnaround in a team I've seen," said Schick.***The Estevan Tornados peewee AA team also attended provincials this past weekend, finishing with a 1-3 record in Lloydminster.Estevan beat Martensville 10-0 on the mercy rule in five innings, lost 7-2 to Yorkton, lost 11-1 to the eventual-champion Lloydminster Twins, and fell again to Yorkton in a tiebreaker Sunday."It was a very good game," said Tornados coach Kent Phillips. "Our kids played awesome. Our back catcher (Ryan Stovin) threw out a couple of runners trying to steal and he played the best he's played all season. I was so impressed with him."Phillips also had praise for pitcher Jesse Mack and said the Tornados played well defensively for much of the tournament."I would have been disappointed if we'd lost because we'd played bad but we lost because the other teams were very good and overall it was a great weekend," said Phillips.
