It has been a long time since the Wilkie Brewers and Lloydminster Meridian Twins have not met in the North Saskatchewan River Baseball League championship.
Not since 2001, has the final not featured the two teams, but that changed as of Tuesday night.
The Twins did their part by defeating the Unity Cardinals two games straight by 12-2 and 11-4 scores.
Wilkie failed to advance to the final, as Meadow Lake's offence came alive late in both games to earn wins over the Brewers in the other semifinal.
In Meadow Lake July 26, the Sox led 2-1 heading into the fifth inning. They scored four runs in the fifth inning including a hard hit two-run home run by Quincy Winkler. The Sox went on to win game one of the series 6-1, as Craig Weran was the winning pitcher.
In Wilkie for game two, the teams traded leads early and Wilkie led 5-4 heading into the seventh inning. Meadow Lake refused to quit and scored four runs in the top of the seventh.
In the bottom of the inning, Wilkie's first two batters were retired, but they did manage to get the tying run to the plate before having their season and streak of NSRBL final appearances come to an end. Jordan Stacey earned the 8-5 win on the mound for Meadow Lake.
The final for the championship series has not been set at press time because the Twins, who picked up Winkler, have AA provincials this weekend and the Sox have A provincials in Lloydminster next weekend.
The Twins have won the NSRBL championship the past two seasons, and six times since 2000. The Sox are looking for their first league championship.
The two teams finished with identical 12-2 records, but the Twins won the regular season matchup 4-0. In that game Winkler struck out 14 batters while the Twins' Matt Loree had 10 strikeouts in the win. Both pitchers surrendered just three hits in the game.
