Merchants 2 Legionaires 0
INNISFAIL — The Innisfail Merchants were hoping their bats would make like the Central Alberta summer skies and produce a little thunder on Friday evening.
It didn’t happen, but the Merchants were at least able to plate a run for the first time in the 2012 Western Canada Junior Baseball Championship and scratched out a 2-0 win over the St. Boniface Legionaires.
Designated hitter Matt Whitehead stroked a one-out single to left field in the sixth inning to score Corby Shields from second base, giving the Merchants their first run of the six-team tournament. Riley Wik also scored on the same play when the Legionaires outfielder bobbled the ball before getting it back into play.
Shields and Wik reached base on a hit pitch and infield error before scoring, and as it turned out that was all the support Innisfail pitcher Mclean Cruthers needed.
“That was a great win, about time. We finally got the monkey off our backs,” said Whitehead.
Indeed, the Merchants entered the contest with an 0-2 slate following 2-0 losses to Team Alberta on Thursday and the Steinbach, Man., Carillon Sultans on Friday afternoon.
“Our pitching and defence has been really good, we’ve just being working on getting our bats hot right now, focusing on getting that fastball and trying to drive it to the gaps,” said Whitehead.
“We’ve hit the ball really hard but they’ve mostly been right to guys. We’re just working on getting the gaps and trying to play a little smarter.”
The Merchants take on the Moose Jaw Eagles at 9 a.m. today and face the Weyburn Beavers in their final round-robin game at 6 p.m. They must win both to have any chance of reaching Sunday’s 2 p.m. final between the first- and second-place teams.
“We need to pile on some runs the rest of the way. We’ll try to score some runs early tomorrow morning,” said Whitehead.
Cruthers pitched a gem, giving up just three hits while fanning four batters, walking one and hitting one in a complete-game performance. One of the St. Boniface hits was a lead-off double by Brenden Shearer in the seventh and final inning, but Cruthers followed by getting Daniel Worb on a ground-out and Brett Harrison on an outfield fly, and striking out Josiah Churchill to end the game.
“That was a must win for us, for sure,” said Merchants coach Jay Steeves, whose team managed only three hits — including singles by Riley Elliott and Tristan Cunningham — off Legionaires pitcher Bryan Evans, who recorded five strikeouts, walked one batter and hit two.
“We’ve had solid pitching and great defence so far, but we had to manufacture some stuff here tonight. We shook up the lineup a bit and created a few things with the hit-and-run and bunting,” Steeves continued. “Whatever it takes right now . . . we’re trying to put that ball in play and we were able to crack that goose egg and get some confidence.”
In the morning game, Jamie Whitehead started for Innisfail and was tagged with the loss. Alex Roth came in on relief in the fifth inning and Matt Whitehead worked the final frame.
St. Boniface fell to 1-1 with the loss. The Legionaires were 4-3 winners over Weyburn earlier in the day.
In Friday’s other games, Team Alberta (3-0) crushed Moose Jaw 13-1 and doubled Weyburn (0-3) 6-3. The score from the 6 p.m. game at Red Deer’s Great Chief Park versus 1-0 Carillon and 1-1 Moose Jaw was unavailable.
In today’s other games, St. Boniface will take on Team Alberta at 9 a.m. at Great Chief Park and Moose Jaw at 3 p.m. at Innisfail, Weyburn will face Steinbach at noon at Innisfail and the Sultans will meet Team Alberta at 6 p.m. at Great Chief.
Steinbach and St. Boniface will hook up in the final round-robin contest at 10 a.m. Sunday at Innisfail.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com