By Scott Roblin

Saskatoon Cubs outlast Blues for Medicine Hat ‘AA’ tournament title

Jun 3, 2019 | 12:47 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – They had to make the farthest journey home, but the drive back to Saskatoon was surely a jubilant one for the Cubs ‘AA’ baseball organization.

On the diamond at Athletic Park on Sunday, the Cubs outlasted the Calgary Blues in a battle of attrition to win the 2019 Servus Credit Union ‘AA’ Tournament title 9-8 in extra innings.

Head coach Dan Morari said it was a good test for his players in a high pressure situation against the Blues.

“As that game went on guys were kind of digging deeper and deeper,” said Morari. “A back and forth affair, both teams were giving each other their best punch and our team just happened to get the last punch in.”

Saskatoon’s offensive presence was one of the talking points of the tournament, racking up 55 runs in just five games of action.

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Despite the Cubs holding the hot bat, Morari said they couldn’t take any of the other seven teams lightly over the weekend.

“We came into this tournament knowing we were going to see good competition,” he said. “Good velocity and bats that were firing as they were. But, I thought our guys did well handling that.”

Saskatoon got their revenge against a Calgary team that crushed them in the round-robin 20-4, the lone blemish on the team’s weekend.

According to Morari, that game was a turning point for the Cubs on their way to winning the Medicine Hat championship.

“After we lost our second game of the tournament, we knew that we had a hole to get out of and that we had to play a lot harder and take nothing for granted,” he said. “I thought that our guys did a good job of seizing the opportunity and playing hard from that point on.”

The Medicine Hat ‘AA’ Moose Monarchs failed to qualify for Sunday’s playoff games, however they did win their first game of the season 11-1 over the Calgary Redbirds.

They’ll try to stretch a win streak to two games on Tuesday night, welcoming the Lethbridge Elks to Athletic Park at 7:00 pm.

K of C Knights post strong weekend stateside

Not a bad showing at all for the Medicine Hat ‘A’ K of C Knights over the weekend, posting three wins in four games south of the border in Montana.

Hitting the road for the first time this season, the Knights kicked things off Saturday with 5-2 and 6-4 wins over the Lewistown Redbirds.

Wyatt Study pitched a complete game in the opener for Medicine Hat with no earned runs given up on two hits, while two of the team’s five runs came off the bat of Kobe Coderre.

Trailing 4-1 entering the seventh inning in the second meeting, the Knights put up a five-spot on the Redbirds thanks in part to RBI-singles from Cole Rath and Jordan Hieb to record the win.

Travelling to Havre to battle the North Stars in a double-header on Sunday, the Knights kicked things off with an 8-4 victory off the back of Hayden Hall’s three-RBI performance.

Medicine Hat was poised to sweep the weekend up 9-2 entering the North Stars final at-bats, but Havre exploded for eight runs over the seventh inning to stun the Knights with a walk-off victory.

Despite leaving Montana on a sour note, Coderre had a strong showing Sunday with four RBIs in the second half of the double-header.

Hitting the road again for Lethbridge, the Knights pay a visit against the Miners on Tuesday for a pair of games beginning at 6:00 pm.