Away from the confines of home, the Estevan Sherritt Coal Haulers failed to defend last year's provincial bantam AA title on the weekend, falling short of the playoffs in North Battleford.
After winning it all in 2012 at Cactus Park, the Haulers posted a 1-2 record at this year's provincials.
"We only had three or four guys who really hit consistently on the weekend and you're not going to win it with three or four guys. We needed all 12 guys hitting," said Haulers head coach Kent Phillips.
Phillips, who was part of last year's provincial championship club, said he noticed the Haulers' play had fallen off a bit recently, but was at a loss to explain it.
"Our hitting let us down at provincials. We just didn't hit the ball like we did at the start of the year.
"We saw that coming in the last month of the season. We didn't dominate like we did at the start of the year, and I don't know what happened. We didn't change anything as far as our routine went, as far as our practices went. We still did lots of batting cage, lots of live cage, batting on the diamond. Why it changed, I have no idea."
The Haulers began with a disappointing 7-6 loss to the Moose Jaw Mallards, a harbinger of things to come. The Mallards finished last in the Baseball Regina bantam AAA division this year at 2-18, while the Haulers topped the standings at 12-1.
Estevan started the game well, building a 5-0 lead through the top half of the fourth inning.
"With the pitch count the way it is, my starting pitcher had 50 pitches in three innings and we were up 5-0, so I figured, well, I don't want to burn up a pitcher the very first day," Phillips said. "We pulled him and between the pitchers and the umpire, we couldn't find the strike zone and we gave up a lot of walks and next thing you know, it's a tie ball game."
Moose Jaw would score three runs in the bottom of the inning and three more in the sixth before scoring the winning run on a walk in the bottom of the seventh.
"We just didn't capitalize when we needed to with the hitting. We scattered hits here and there, but not enough to consistently score anybody. We left a lot of guys on base," said Phillips.
The Haulers lost 4-2 to Lloydminster in their second game on Saturday.
Phillips said starter Josh Brown "pitched an amazing game" and "did an awesome job on the mound for us," but it wasn't enough against a strong opponent. Brady Third came on in relief.
"Lloydminster's a very good hitting team and to hold them to four runs is pretty impressive. I believe all the runs we gave up were on errors, so take some errors out of the equation and it's a different story."
Lloydminster plated two runs in the second inning, one in the fourth and one in the seventh. The Haulers had one in the first, with leadoff hitter Kyle Sargent coming around to score, and another in the bottom of the seventh.
"Pitching was definitely the story there. We had a couple of timely hits to score a couple of runs on them, but not enough. The team they've got, in my opinion, they shouldn't even be in AA provincials because they draw from Alberta, so they should be AAA."
The Haulers earned their lone win with a 3-1 walkoff victory over Melfort in their last game.
"Carson Perkins pitched a beauty of a game," said Phillips. Dalton Loustel came in to get the final out after Perkins reached his pitch count limit.
Third came in to score in the first inning on a fielder's choice by Perkins, getting the Haulers on the board. After that, the pitching on both sides shut the door until the sixth inning, when Melfort tied the game on an RBI double.
Perkins ended the game with a walkoff double, bringing home Third and Nate Smart.
"The hitting was timely (in that game)," Phillips said, but it was too late.
The Haulers will play league playoffs this weekend in Regina.
