MOOSEJAWEXPRESS.COM • Wednesday, July 24, 2019 • PAGE A19
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Moose Jaw All-Stars win Little League Prairie championship Local squad to represent Prairies at Little League Canada national tournament beginning Aug. 1 in Ancaster, Ont. Randy Palmer - Moose Jaw Express
The Moose Jaw All-Stars capped their season-long quest for the Little League Saskatchewan Major AAA championship with an 11-1 win over North Regina in the gold medal game at Gamble Diamond last Wednesday night. The victory marked the third-straight mercy-rule win of the playoffs for Moose Jaw and fourth in five games. “We pitched really super awesome, we fielded well, we hit the ball hard, we did all the little things right,” said All-Stars head coach Tony Dreger. “It was pretty much a perfect game.” With everything on the line in the first game of the ‘A-B’ final, the All-Stars threw caution to the wind when it came to pitcher conservation, and that meant it was all Max Simmons, all day. The Moose Jaw starter tossed all five innings, giving up the single run on four hits while striking out eight and needing only 54 pitches in the process. He also helped get things done at the plate, going 2-for-4 with a run scored and two runs batted in. “I was just trying to throw strikes when I was pitching and when I was hitting I was trying to get my bat on the ball and hit the gaps,” said Simmons, the son of local curling stand-outs Pat and Cindy Simmons. “I’m glad we won… it feels good to win and to win the whole thing, but to mercy them twice and especially in the finals was good.”
Action from the gold medal game of the Little League Saskatchewan Major AAA provincial championships between the Moose Jaw All-Stars and North Regina.
Team captain Javin Boynton knocked home Noah Thul with the mercy-rule invoking run in the bottom of the fifth after Thul had earlier scored Simmons with a double. “The win felt really good,” Boynton said shortly after accepting the championship trophy. “We went up and down a couple times (during the week) but it was still pretty good. We knew we could do it so we just pulled it off.” Boynton finished the game 2-for-2 with a pair of walks, three runs scored and the aforementioned RBI. Thul and Cooper Gregor also crossed the plate twice each, with Gregor knocking in a pair of runs.
The All-Stars opened the tournament with a 13-3 win over Regina Kiwanis before suffering one of the few in-province setbacks they’ve seen all season in an 11-6 loss to North Regina. They rebounded in style with a 20-0 win over Kiwanis in the first game of the playoffs, followed with a 20-10 win over North Regina in the ‘A’ final and, after North defeated Kiwanis in the ‘B’ final, closed things out. “That loss probably helped us re-focus and re-adjust, it showed us that we’re not invincible,” Dreger said. “So that got us refocused, working hard again and it paid off. We mercied all the other games
so we’re super happy with the boys.” Having so many double-digit victories is just a product of how the team plays the game, Dreger added. “When they come in between the lines they want to have fun, but work hard and play good baseball,” he said. “We’ve been doing that the whole year, now we’re looking forward to Canadians and seeing what we can do down there.” The Canadian Little League Championship runs Aug. 1-10 in Ancaster, Ont. (see sidebar), with the winner advancing to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Penn. Aug. 15-25.
All-Stars open nationals against Quebec Canadian Little League Championship schedule released Randy Palmer - Moose Jaw Express
The Moose Jaw Little League All-Stars can finally book their flights. Even with their winning the Little League Prairie championship in such commanding fashion, the All-Stars were loathe to look ahead even the slightest bit, meaning they have a bit of preparation to do before they leave for Ancaster, Ont. for the Canadian Little League championship on July 30. That includes figuring out how they’re going to prepare for the week-and-a-half long tournament that begins on Aug. 1, the one thing they had been thinking about be-
fore Wednesday’s championship victory. “We decided as a staff a little while ago that we were just going to practice at home,” head coach Tony Dreger explained. “We have a couple of exhibition games that we’d like to line-up, but we have some banged-up guys and we need to heal-up a little bit. “We’ve been going every day for a month and sometimes twice a day, so we’re going to take three days off, come back Sunday and get back on the field practicing, since we’re two weeks out from nationals here.” The All-Stars already know their schedule (all times ET):
Aug. 1 – Quebec, 10 a.m. Aug. 2 – Ancaster, 5 p.m. Aug. 3 – Atlantic, 2 p.m. Aug. 4 – Rest day Aug. 5 – Alberta, 11 a.m. Aug. 6 – British Columbia, 9 a.m. Aug. 7 – Ontario, 12 p.m. Aug. 8 – Rain date, tiebreakers Aug. 9 – Semifinals, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Aug. 10 – Championship final, 11 a.m. All games will be streamed live on CBC.ca and MooseJawToday.com will have daily coverage.
Prairie Dogs win provincial championship Randy Palmer - Moose Jaw Express
The Moose Jaw Prairie Dogs might not have had a perfect regular season record but they couldn’t have timed their winning any better. Mac Sowden tossed 5 2/3rd innings of outstanding baseball and the local squad held off a final inning charge by the Saskatoon Blue Jay Mud Dawgs to take a 5-4 win in the 11-and-under AA Tier 2 provincial championship final on Sunday afternoon at Lyle Helland Ball Diamond. “It’s funny, our team got off to slow starts throughout the tournament, but once our team got rolling the kids got locked in and got the job done,” said Prairie Dogs head coach Craig Flanagan. “I have to give a lot of credit to Mac, he’s our one 10-year-old and he’s a big leader on our team, I couldn’t ask any more from him.” Sowden kept the Dawgs off balance all game before Saskatoon managed a couple of hits in the final inning to bring the tying run to the plate. Dillon Flanagan
took over for the final batter, getting the strike-out and touching off a raucous celebration for the team and their parents and fans. “A 5-4 game in a provincial final, you can’t ask for anything more in a game like that,” Flanagan said. “We were the youngest team in this tournament, we’re almost all first-year Mosquito-age kids, and I can’t put into words how proud I am of these kids.” Moose Jaw advanced to the final with an 8-3 win over the Regina Pacers in the semifinals earlier Sunday. The victory brought the Prairie Dogs season to an end, capping a campaign that couldn’t have closed on a higher note. “This is kind of our World Series, this is what we were building for all year and our kids just came closer together as a team,” Flanagan said. “They played so well this weekend and we couldn’t be prouder.”
The 2019 Baseball Saskatchewan 11U AA Tier 2 provincial champion Moose Jaw Prairie Dogs