Baseball teams from across the province took to the local diamonds to see who would claim the top spot.
The Bonnyville Braves U13 hosted the U13 AA Tier Four Provincial Championships at the Peter Kushnir Ball Park from Friday, July 26 to Sunday, July 28.
The opening ceremonies kicked everything off on Friday night with Bonnyville Minor Ball director Jim Church throwing the ceremonial first pitch.
“He’s done so much for baseball in Bonnyville for years,” noted head coach Ken McMillan. “It was nice that we got the chance to recognize him for that.”
Teams at this year’s tournament included the Chestermere Crushers, Coronation Royals, St. Albert Cardinals Blue, and the Morinville Brewers, among others.
“Baseball Alberta does a good job to make sure that all the teams that are in whatever tier are competitive with each other, and I think they did that this year,” explained McMillan.
After hosting a successful provincial event last year for the mosquito AA team, Dawn McMillan, tournament director, said they decided to put in a bid to do it again.
“We have a really good group of parents, and everybody’s really willing to pitch in to help out. It’s nice for the boys to be able to play on their home field, and they were excited about it.”
Ken added, “We’ve hosted before, so I think they (Baseball Alberta) were confident and knew we’d be able to do a good job… Sometimes you have to drive all over the province, so they try to make it a little more of a centralized location.”
For second baseman Shawn Vallee, 12, there was another positive for the weekend.
“It’s a bonus when you get a lot of your family and people to come out to watch and support you,” he said.
Having a home field advantage for the year-end tournament was a highlight for third baseman Cale Rupp, 12.
“It feels good that we’re being recognized for all of that hard work that we put in during practices,” he expressed.
Over their seven summer tournaments this season, the Braves hosted four, including provincials.
“Everybody’s always really appreciative of the facility that we have, and we’re able to host more than one diamond at a time,” detailed Dawn, adding they will continue to put bids forward in the future.
“If people are giving it to us, we’ll keep doing it. We pulled together a lot in a short amount of time and I think it was a successful weekend.”
While they played tough, the Braves didn’t have the end result they wanted. They fell 7-1 to the Morvinville Brewers Friday evening, and lost 15-14 to the Coronation Royals on Saturday. They finished the weekend off with a 7-5 win over the Delia Blues on Sunday.
In the end, it was the Red Deer Braves 1 who claimed gold. The Edmonton Padres finished the weekend in second place.
“We were hoping to come out on top, but ultimately, I hoped it was a successful tournament for everybody… Just good games, and a competitive weekend. Win or lose, that’s what we hoped for,” Dawn noted.
