The St. Paul Cubs defeated the Cold Lake Cardinals twice in a best of three series for the inaugural Lakeland League championship trophy on the weekend.
The Cubs defeated the Cardinals 9-8 on Saturday in St. Paul and continued the winning streak in Cold Lake for the 7-4 win and the league championship on Sunday.
The Cubs took the lead early in the final game. The Cardinals battled back against a seven run lead in the sixth and seventh innings. With bases loaded, Cubs closing pitcher Brad Krawchuk shut down the potential Cardinals’ comeback.
The St. Paul team “shut the door at the end,” said Cubs player and Lakeland League president Corey deMoissac.
Reggie Rivard scored three runs batted in, while Justin Anderson and deMoissac had two each.
Calling the Cardinals one of the better teams in the province, deMoissac said the strategy going into game two of the playoffs would be strong pitching. Steve Hogue started on Sunday and Rob Hogue started on Saturday.
“Pitching is going to be huge tomorrow, and key hitting at key times is going to be very important.”
On Saturday’s game, the Cardinals took an early 4-0 lead in the first inning. The Cubs fought back for the lead and held on till the last inning for a close but decisive win.
“Once our pitcher got settled down and our guys started hitting the ball, it made a big difference,” said deMoissac.
“These guys are here to play and it’s one of those things where we’ve got to be our best to beat them.”
Cold Lake’s Kevin Cyre hit the only home run of the night to bring the score to 9-8, but it was not enough for the Cardinals. “With wooden bats you don’t hit a lot of home runs, so this is only our fourth home run of the year,” said Cyre after the game.
“I thought the game went really well,” he said. “It was up and down. We were ahead by four, then down by three and we kept battling back, so it was a fun game.”
The Cubs defeated the Lac La Biche Dodgers 8-1 in the semi-finals on Thursday. DeMoissac attributed the win to a great pitching performance with 13 strikeouts.
