CANMORE – Just for a minute, it looked as if the fifth-seed Calgary North 1 (CN1) team was about to pull off a gigantic playoff upset against the Bow Valley Blues.
In the top of the final inning last Sunday (June 18) at Canmore’s Millennium Park, Blues pitcher Kyle Craven was in a tight spot with a runner in scoring position and no outs.
His top-seeded U22 baseball team was clinging to a one-run lead and they needed three outs to advance to the championship game this weekend.
“My nerves were high,” said Craven, whose curveball had been off all game, so he relied on his heat to beat CN1.
“I trusted my defence and just started to throw strikes.”
He got an important first-out, which was a high pop fly Craven caught after a shaky adjustment to grab it at the last second.
The third batter Craven almost did some serious damage, and would have certainly cashed in the runner at second, after hitting a low-line drive toward left field. However, the golden glove of third baseman Stephen Jones snagged the speeding ball mid-air for the second out of the inning.
“I think it’s the playoff atmosphere and everyone’s coming out 100 per cent,” said Craven. “Keeping it a one-run game was tough.”
The fourth batter up, who was aiming for the fences, had an audible smack on Craven’s fastball and sent it flying to centre fielder Gavin McLennan, who caught it to end the game, 2-1, in favour of the hometown club.
It was a collective sigh of relief for the Blues in a game that was too close for comfort.
“I was definitely a little nervous with a guy standing in scoring position,” said head coach Luke Gauvreau. “But Kyle did a good job and pitched his way out of it and the defence, that’s our strongest part of our game, sometimes the bats are hot and then when they’re hot we just happen to roll over teams and when they’re not, we gotta rely on our defence and that’s what you saw.”
Scoring RBIs were Craven and Torin Young.
The Blues play in the championship Sunday (June 25) at 2 p.m. at New Brighton Athletic Park in Calgary.
It will be against either the No. 2 seed CN3 or the No. 3 Davisburg Sodbusters, which played Wednesday (June 21) after being rained out last Sunday. Due to print deadlines, the Outlook was unable to confirm the winner.
This season, the Blues are 2-1 against CN3 and 1-1 against Davisburg.
However, after the slow start to Sunday’s playoff game, whichever team they play, Blues catcher Logan Carruthers said the team will be zoned-in and ready to play ball.
“We’re going to battle and we’re going to come ready to go and we’re going to be ready to start and not wait around,” Carruthers said. “I think we just got to loosen up a little bit better and be ready to go, hot start and take it to them to ‘em.”
