The Carnduff Twins mosquito AA baseball team welcomed the best ball clubs in the province to town last weekend for the Baseball Saskatchewan Mosquito AA Tier 5 Championships, but that doesn't mean the team simply played gracious hosts.
The Twins battled hard against each of the four visiting teams throughout the July 15-17 competition starting with a tournament opening 15-5 four-inning win over the Gull Lake Greyhounds on Friday evening. The club followed that up the next morning with a 14-3 four-inning defeat of the Langenburg Junior Indians before suffering a 10-7 setback to the Carlyle Cardinals.
Carduff bounced back from that loss to beat the Macklin Lakers 3-1 in a game they had to win to make it to the provincial final. In the final the Twins once again drew the Lakers, but a slow start proved too tough to overcome in the 13-2 four-inning loss.
“We're really proud of our team,” said Twins head coach Blair Beck. “They put in a lot of work through the year and we had a real successful year. We played 32 games as a team and we won 27 of those 32 games. The game we hoped to win at the end, it just didn't work our way.”
Beck said Carnduff has a strong baseball program and they were able to show that at provincials on the weekend, which were made possible in part through the work of their committee leads in Tara Beck and Crystal Wilson. He said the future of Carnduff ball is looking bright and success on the diamond is sure to continue in the coming years.
“We went last year to the provincial tournament in Gull Lake,” he said. “We lost in the semifinal, (but in) the future we hope to take the next step.”
