Without the reigning champion Westlock Grey Lions in the mix, there was a new Harvey J. Doherty Memorial baseball tournament champion this year.
Unfortunately, the title is not staying in Westlock after the Cold Lake Cardinals finished in first place during the May 31 event at Keller Field.
Only three teams took part in the tournament —the Cardinals, the Stony Plain Mets and the host Red Lions — with each team playing the other two teams once. At the end of the day, all three teams finished with one win and one loss, meaning the tiebreaker came down to who had the best run differential.
Westlock beat Stony Plain 7-2 and lost to Cold Lake 8-4, for a combined differential of plus one.
Combined with the Mets’ 9-7 over the Cardinals, they finished at minus three.
The Cardinals took the title thanks to their 8-4 win over Westlock, which put their run differential at plus two.
Red Lions manager Adam Sawatzky the team didn’t quite play up to its potential, which he partially attributed to the fact only three teams participated.
“It was weird this year,” he said. “We normally pride ourselves on doing well at our tournament, but this year it was more of a different mindset; it was more like an exhibition.”
The Red Lions didn’t play a sharp game in either of their tilts, which came back to bite them against the Cardinals.
“It was a tough game,” Sawatzky said.
He and Kris Johnson both pitched in that game, but just didn’t have their best stuff, he said. That led to a lot of Cardinal baserunners and a lot of Cardinal runs.
The Cardinals weren’t especially sharp, either, Sawatzky said, but they were sharper than the Mets.
In the game against the Mets, the Red Lions led early, and kept adding to their lead. However, even with the win the team wasn’t particularly happy.
“It wasn’t a pretty game, but we capitalized on our chances,” he said.
Sawatzky said for all the good play and good luck the team had in the win, it simply didn’t carry over to the game against the Cardinals.
Next up for the Red Lions is a trip to Edmonton to take on the Warriors on June 4.
They follow that up with a trip to Waskatenau June 6-8 for the Starchuk-Semeniuk Memorial tournament, an event they have traditionally done well in.
