The Red Lions’ season is over.
Playing the second-seeded Camrose Axemen in the North Central Alberta Baseball League semifinals Aug. 16-17 at Keller Field, the team lost an entertaining best-of-three series 2-1.
Camrose won game one 2-1, with the Red Lions coming back to win game two 10-7. Game three went to Camrose 10-5, earning the Axemen a date with the Edmonton Blackhawks for the NCABL title this coming weekend.
Despite the season ending earlier than he hoped, Red Lions manager Adam Sawatzky said the players could still hold their heads high. “We have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “We played hard and competed. We worked hard.”
Looking back on the season, Sawatzky said there were no surprises for him. There was a group of core players, such as Jordan Brand and T.J. Oliwa, who were always there throughout the year, and who were the real leaders of the team.
As for what the 2015 Red Lions will look like, acknowledging the 2014 season just ended, he said he expects most, if not all, of the team to be back. Adding in players like Brendan Watamaniuk and Chris Brand who missed this year, and the Red Lions will be “back with a vengeance in 2015.
The playoff series with the Axemen was both a tight and a wide open affair.
Game 1 on Saturday afternoon ended with the Axemen posting a 2-1 win.
“It was the tightest game,” Sawatzky said.
The Axemen scored early on a two-run double, but the Red Lions replied quickly with a run of their own.
From that point out, the Red Lions did just about everything they could to score, but simply couldn’t do it.
“We got guys on base, but we couldn’t capitalize,” Sawatzky said. “It would just about always be with two outs, and we couldn’t get the hits.”
Game 2 started at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
Needing a win to avoid elimination, the Red Lions pulled out a 10-7 victory, but it wasn’t easy.
Down 7-4 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, the Red Lions exploded for six runs to take a 10-7 lead, which they were able to defend in the top of the seventh, tying the series at one game apiece.
“We showed perseverance and stick-to-itiveness,” Sawatzky said.
To come back from several deficits in the same game and hold on to the lead once the earned it late shows what the team is made of, he said.
“We battled back,” he said. “It proved what we know about our character — you get your hit and the guy behind you would get one too.”
Game 3 at 5 p.m. on Sunday started with a bang for the Red Lions in the top of the first — with one out Stu Schroder hit a two-run homerun to stake his team to a 2-0 lead.
The lead didn’t survive the inning, however, as the Axemen plated two of their own in the bottom half to make it 2-2. Two more Axemen runs in the bottom of the second made it 4-2, but the Red Lions fought back with one in the third and two in the fourth to give themselves a 5-4 lead.
The wheels came off soon after, with the Axemen scoring four in the bottom of the fourth to go up 8-5, and tacked on two more in the fifth to make it 10-5.
“It’s tough to think about,” he said of Game 3 shortly after it ended.
Reflecting on the playoff run, he said both teams left it all out on the field. “Both teams played hard. We battled on both sides of the ball. It was a good two days of ball.”
