It was a weekend of highs and lows for the Muenster AA Midget Red Sox.
The team slogged it out in the hot sun over the weekend, but it paid off in the end because the AA Midget baseball team is going to Provincials.
That was the news after the three-team zone-provincial Midget A playoff between the Lumsden Cubs, the Watrous Lakers and Muenster on July 7, coach Garret Korte told the Journal.
"We beat Watrous the first game," Korte said. "Then Lumsden played Watrous, and they beat them as well. So Watrous was out, and Lumsden and us were sitting in about the same place in the standings."
However, in their game against the Lumsden Cubs that same afternoon, Korte said the team hit rock bottom, losing 14-5 to the visiting team.
"The Lumsden game we played yesterday was the worst we played all year," he said, and then added "sometimes in sports you have to go down to come back up again, you know."
Which is exactly what happened in the opening game of the doubleheader regular league games the Red Sox played at home the next day, July 8.
They opened with pitcher Tanner Syroteuk on the mound, and it looked like the Red Sox were going to settle into an easy win with a five-point lead at the bottom of the fourth inning.
But the visiting Broncos from Pilot Butte rallied, with their batsmen bringing in a succession of home runs to bring the score up to 6-4 for Muenster.
At that point, Korte had to change pitcher because, as he explained, the team has five games in the next week and the pitchers are limited to the number of innings they can throw in a given number of games. It was Colby Frerichs who took over for Syroteuk, and the struggle continued for the next two innings until, with a surprise twist on the scoreboard, the Broncos had not only caught up to the Red Sox but gained a one-point lead, making it 8-7.
It looked as if things were going to play out much the same way as the previous day's game, but the Red Sox started belting the ball, bringing player after player across home plate to finish with a 16-9 win over Pilot Butte.
"It was a good game," Korte said, happy but relieved at the outcome. "It was the best we played all year after we kind of hit rock bottom yesterday."
Their win over Pilot Butte was an important one as the team has to finish in the top eight to get to the league championship tournament, and they have been neck and neck with the Broncos so far.
The Red Sox will be doing a lot of travelling this week, with two games in Melfort and games in Moose Jaw and Regina, before returning to play at home again on July 15.
But the real feather in their cap is that the team, in its first year in the AA Midget league, is advancing to Provincials in Moose Jaw, July 27-28.
