CANMORE – The Bow Valley Blues blasted a potential playoff opponent and clinched the No. 2 seed in the Calgary North Baseball League (CNBL) on Sunday (June 12) at Canmore’s Millennium Park.
The U22 baseball team’s bats came up huge in the regular season finale while handing the No. 1 seed Calgary North 2 (CN2) its first loss in a 16-6 mercy ruling in a game of bragging rights and trash-talk between the two rival clubs.
In a "not very classy" rib against Blues coach Luke Gauvreau, his university T-shirt was hung out of the opposing team's bullpen for the entirety of the game.
But after three innings, the Blues bullpen was having the biggest laugh and getting it done at the plate in a 9-2 lead. The hit parade caused frustration among the CN2 players about the score being run up.
“We’ve had some heated pasts, the coach and I,” said Gauvreau of CN2’s Michael Balan.
“We always have a good game together no matter what, so that’s good. … I went to school in the States at Texas A&M and they had my shirt hanging in their dugout [on Sunday] to try and poke fun at me, so there you go, there’s a mercy loss for you guys for the first loss of the year.
“Well, one, it is what it is, and two, it’s not very classy, and three, that’s why you don’t do it because it just shows that it just grinds people the wrong way – my team, right? And there you go.”
The game was called after the fifth inning via mercy ruling when the Blues blew open their lead to 10 runs on CN2.
Blues' third baseman Stephen Jones, who batted in five runners on Sunday on two triples and one ground rule double, said the big victory against CN2 came at the right time.
“Going into playoffs, it gives us a lot of confidence,” said Jones. “We’ve won three straight … Our defence is really good and if we hit really well we should be amazing because our defence has been so well-rounded that if we hit, no team can stop us.”
Playoffs start Friday (June 17) in the five-team CNBL and the Blues (8-3-1) take on the last place Calgary Reds (0-10-1) in the first game of double-elimination bracket tournament.
