WESTLOCK – The Westlock Senior Red Lions, known locally as the Grey Lions, are in the midst of another strong campaign in the 10-team Alberta West Central Baseball Association and sit only a handful of games out of first place behind the two-time defending champs, the Sturgeon Paladins.
The Grey Lions improved to 8-2 last week following a 4-2 win over the Sherwood Park Pirates July 4 at Keller Field, followed by 9-4 and 15-1 victories over the Edmonton Heat in a July 9 doubleheader in the city.
Although they’ve had their fair share of rainouts so far in 2023, player/manager Sheldon McConaghy said it’s been a good year with much of the same dedicated crew back. Versus the Pirates, the Grey Lions managed to break a scoreless deadlock with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fifth, then in the top of the sixth the Pirates knotted the game. The tie didn’t last long as the Lions scored two more in the bottom of the inning to regain the lead and held on for the win.
“We’ve had to battle the weather with rainouts, but beyond that it’s been a really good year so far. We have a couple of new guys, but it’s mainly the same group as last year, which is a good competitive bunch,” said McConaghy.
The club has toiled in the AWCBA, which is for players ages 30-plus, for at least the past decade and have scored a handful of championships over that span, although they’ve lost to the Paladins in the league championship final in 2022 (2-1) and 2021 (2-0), while the league was shuttered in 2020 due to COVID-19 and in 2019 the Paladins swept them two-straight in the semifinal series.
The club has two more home games this month, July 14 versus the Edmonton Grey Jays and July 19 versus the Sherwood Park Ducks, then head into the playoffs in August. There the league will split, with the top four and the next four playing off in best-of-three series, while the bottom two clubs will also go head-to-head. Following that, the league is also planning to host an all-star game slated for Aug. 19 in Sherwood Park.
