Westlock’s Red Lions could not repeat as North Central Alberta Baseball League champions after losing to the Edmonton Blackhawks at Footz Field in Edmonton Aug. 24-25.
“It’s obviously not the result we went into the weekend hoping for,” said Red Lions manager Adam Sawatzky.
The Red Lions lost the best-of-three series 2-1. They won Game One on Saturday 10-3, but dropped Game Two later that day 7-0.
That split meant the two teams squared off once more on Sunday afternoon, with the Blackhawks continuing their dominance from the previous game en route to a 7-1 win.
“We came out a little bit flat,” Sawatzky said about Game Three. “We didn’t have the bats that we’d had throughout the year.”
In their lone win, he said just about everything went the Red Lions’ way.
“We came out really fast and got ourselves a nice lead and just continued to go from there,” he said.
Combined with Kris Johnson’s “absolutely fantastic” pitching that kept the Blackhawks off balance all game, the Red Lions were in control from start to finish.
Game Two, on the other hand, was almost a complete role reversal.
“They kind of got on us a little bit early,” Sawatzky said. “They really changed their approach offensively.”
Once the Blackhawks got runners on base, they kept using hit-and-run plays to advance the runners and score, he said. They built up a lead and used a strong pitching performance to shut out the Red Lions.
Game Three saw the Blackhawks maintain the momentum they established in Game Two, Sawatzky said.
“They got out of the gates early and we struggled to get our offense going,” he said. “It seemed we would get a hard-hit ball but it would be right at somebody. They would hit a soft on that found a hole.”
Despite the disappointment of coming up short in the championship series, Sawatzky said there were still many positives to be drawn from the season.
The team met and exceeded some of the goals they had set before the season, and continued to improve as the season went on.
“We didn’t plateau at all, and we’re still on the rise,” he said. “I expect next year’s team to be battling for the championship again.”
Sawatzky said the highlight of the season was the semifinal win over the Camrose Axemen, the same team the Red Lions beat for the championship last year.
However, he feels that win may have come at a cost.
“We beat them and we were really geared up for that, and when it came to the finals we just didn’t have enough jam to keep going,” he said.
