The 5-4 loss in Midget ‘AA’ Baseball provincial final against the Hanna Legends, on Sunday night is understandably disappointing for the St. Paul Storm, but the team’s head coach Rick Austin says the team should take a lot of pride in getting to that point.
“Making the final is a very good result for our team,” he says. “We were on the lower-end of Tier IV coming into this tournament, but the boys gelled at the right time. We lost Friday night by one, and we lost tonight (Sunday) by one. We were in every game.”
A total of six teams took part in the tournament, which was exclusively held on the diamond near the UFO Landing Pad. Other than St. Paul and Hanna, there were teams from Vegreville, Okotoks and Whitecourt, as well as the Team Alberta Women, to complete the competition field.
After the opening ceremonies were held on Friday night the Storm began its journey to the final with a game against Okotoks.
The game was scoreless until the bottom of the fifth inning, when Okotoks managed to accrue a 2-0 lead.
St. Paul was able to respond in the seventh to tie the game. Tyler Chorney was able to rip a hard blast, which allowed two Storm players to find home plate.
Okotoks added one more run to earn the ‘W’ by a 3-2 score.
The Storm was able to find another gear in its Saturday afternoon game against Vegreville. They managed to put on a hitting masterclass en route to a 10-0 triumph. The game ended after five innings.
“We hit the ball very well, the pitching was phenomenal and we really played excellent defense,” says Austin.
The big win earned St. Paul sole possession of second place in their pool, which qualified them for a semi-final matchup against Whitecourt on Sunday afternoon.
St. Paul made a statement by getting to a 3-0 lead, but Whitecourt managed to rally to make it a 3-2 game.
There were some innings where Whitecourt could have added to its tally as it had the bases loaded, but the good pitching of Vincent Dechaine managed to get the Storm out of the tough jams unscathed.
St. Paul earned three more runs to close out the game with a 6-2 triumph.
Just over an hour after the win the Storm were back on the field against Hanna in the gold medal game.
In his pre-game address to the players, Coach Austin shared some words of wisdom with his team.
“Going into the final game I told the guys ‘I have nothing to teach you guys anymore and I can’t help you no more. You just have to go out and do it. We worked hard to get to this point and I am proud of you win or lose this game.’”
St. Paul struck first by earning a 1-0 lead, but Hanna responded with a run of its own to get the score tied at one at the end of the first inning.
For the next three innings Hanna controlled the play. While the Storm was having a difficult time managing the pitching of the Legends’ Chase Holowath, the Legends were dialed in with their hitting game.
Hanna scored one in the second to pull ahead 2-1. Only a sensational diving catch by the Storm’s Tristan Kean prevented the Legends from piling on runs in the third. They had the bases loaded. If the catch was not made the Legends could have easily added at least one more run to its tally.
The Legends’ strong offensive play paid off with a two-run fourth inning, which put them ahead 4-1 in the game.
Dechaine — the lone 19-year-old on the Storm roster — was called upon his coaches and teammates to make a big play for the team. His blast to get him on first base was the catalyst of a momentum-changing inning. He made it to home plate to cut the lead to 4-2. The Storm continued to make big hits and it loaded the bases.
Hanna’s Holowath began to struggle and that allowed two Storm players to get to base on balls. Since the bases were loaded, two players were able to walk in runs to tie the game at 4-4. It looked like St. Paul was going to re-take the lead after Evan Langager unleashed a powerful drive to leftfield, but it was undone by a tremendous catch inches away from the grass.
Hanna earned a 5-4 lead at the end of six, which put the pressure on St. Paul to tie the game at the top of the seventh inning in order to keep the game going. Hanna’s defense made an emphatic statement by not allowing a single Storm player to reach base in order to close out the game.
The Legend players and coaching staff stormed the field to celebrate its narrow win. There was great respect shown by both teams toward each other in the handshake line, and during the medal ceremonies, as both teams recognized that they staged a game worthy of the final that could have gone either way.
The atmosphere in the stands, just like the game itself, was special. Parents, friends and relatives boisterously cheered on both teams from the start of the contest until the very end.
The disappointment of St. Paul’s loss was lessened a bit by the announcement that Vincent Dechaine was named as tournament MVP.
“He is a phenomenal pitcher,” says Austin. “He did very well for us this weekend. He pitched big for us in the first game and he shut down [Whitecourt] in the semi-final for us to make it to this final. He was definitely the tournament MVP.
This past weekend was also a success for the volunteers of the St. Paul Storm. The local team only found out a week before the tournament that it would be one of the hosts of the 2015 provincials. Due to their work the weekend went by very smoothly.
“My wife Shauna Gates and all the parents worked really hard to make the weekend very successful,” says Austin.
Read next week’s edition of the St. Paul Journal to learn about how the St. Paul Storm did in the Mosquito 'A' Tier II provincials, which were held this past weekend in Stettler.
