ESTEVAN - The 小蓝视频east A's U15 AAA team had a strong showing at the Baseball Sask. provincial championship, going 3-1 and coming within a win of advancing to the semifinals.
The A's opened provincials with three straight wins, beginning with an 18-11 victory over the Northwest Prairie Pirates on Friday. Nathan Yunick hit two home runs and finished with seven runs batted in (RBIs) for the A's, who gave up seven runs in the second inning and trailed 8-3 but fought back. They managed five runs in each of the sixth and seventh innings.
Mathias Fornwald also had four hits in the game.
The A's won their two games Saturday, 7-3 over the Regina White Sox and 8-6 in an extra inning over the Saskatoon Expos, a game the Expos led 6-4 entering the bottom of the eighth.
Jacob Mayer gave up one run in five innings against the White Sox.
Kade Phillips hit a walk-off grand slam home run in the bottom of the eighth in the win over the Expos. Tayson Dietze had two hits and two RBIs.
The A's used four pitches against the Expos.
That left the A's with a 3-0 record and put them into another game with the Expos to determine who would advance to the semifinal round. The Expos scored twice in the sixth in a 2-1 victory.
Yunick allowed two runs, both unearned, in six innings and struck out 10. Phillips came on to pitch the seventh inning. Five hitters had a hit for the A's in the game.
Coach Blair Beck said the A's were able to do everything he hoped they would at provincials.
"We've had a really successful year, and we kept doing the same things this weekend," said Beck.
The top team from each pool in the round robin advanced to the semifinal round, as well as one wildcard team, but the A's lost the tie-breaker for the wildcard on runs against. The seven-run second inning for the Pirates in the opening game came back to hurt them.
Beck thought the game against the White Sox and the first contest versus the Expos were their best of the weekend.
"In the White Sox game, we got a really good pitching performance by Jacob Meyer for that win, and the next game against the Expos, we had a full team win, finished off by a walk-off grand slam home run. I've never seen that before. A walk-off grand slam home run in extra innings."
It's a moment that Phillips won't soon forget, Beck said.
The kids came a long way this year. During the winter, they were training indoors. The team was put together in the spring, and they were successful from the start.
The A's, who are based out of Alameda but have players from throughout the southeast region, finished the season with a 24-9 record. And they were 6-2 between a tournament in Saskatoon and the provincial tournament.
Only four players will be eligible to be back with the A's next season.
"It was a great year, and the whole season worked out well. I was happy overall with how everything went. I would have loved to have the chance to play one or two more games, but we really handled ourselves well. They're a great group of kids," Beck said.
