On a rare outing at home, the Estevan Sherritt Coal Haulers put on a show on Sunday.
In their final games of the regular season, the bantam club defeated the Moose Jaw Mallards 9-5 and 15-3 in a doubleheader at Cactus Park.
They were only the fourth and fifth games played at home this season for the Haulers, due mainly to rainouts.
In fact, Saturday's scheduled doubleheader against Yorkton fell by the wayside due to rain.
In the first game against the Mallards, it took Estevan (12-1) awhile to get going at the plate.
"We got off to a slow start. The pitcher did a good job, between him and the back catcher, keeping our runners close and keeping the guys off-balance when he's pitching, because he changes speeds," said Haulers head coach Kent Phillips.
"It took a little while to get onto him and then he started to tire further into the game, and that's when we started hitting him. We definitely did a lot better once they did a pitching change too."
The Haulers actually trailed 5-3 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning - rarely charted waters for the first-place club in the Baseball Regina bantam AAA division - until they rallied for six runs to win the game.
Estevan batted around in the inning, with Kyler Phillips and Ty Brown each getting on base with a single and later scoring, while Josh Brown, Dalton Loustel, Brett MacMurchy and Hunter Piche all walked and later crossed the plate.
Ty Brown and Mac Fichter each batted 2-for-3 for Estevan.
The second game of the doubleheader ended after four and a half innings, as the mercy rule kicked in with the Haulers leading by more than 10.
"We scored four runs in the first inning, which is good, because that's kind of been our weak point this year. It usually takes one or two times through the order to start hitting the ball, so it was good that we hit the ball right away," said Phillips.
Estevan piled up five more runs in the second inning, and six in the fourth to put the game away.
"The guys were patient at the plate. We got the benefit of a couple of walks there, and then a couple of timely hits and all of a sudden those walks come in to score," Phillips said of the big fourth inning. "And the guys didn't quit. We scored a lot of runs with two outs. It's not like we got all those runs before we got an out. The guys battled up there with two outs and did a great job and didn't quit."
The fourth inning began with Josh Brown singling in a run, followed by Phillips hitting a gapper to left-centre field to bring in two more. Following a pitching change, Brady Third sent a grounder up the third base line to score another run, and Loustel hit a double to bring in two more.
The bantam AAA regular season runs until the end of July, so the Haulers don't yet know who they will face in the playoffs.
Although the Haulers had a dominant regular season for the second straight year, Phillips said there are still a couple of issues to be ironed out.
"We're always getting off to a slow start, that's a little bit of a concern that I've got, and even being focused for a full game.
"The last time we played Moose Jaw, we beat them pretty bad in a tournament we played them in, and they've definitely gotten a lot better since the last time we played them. I think that's in the back of the guys' minds, thinking, 'Oh, well it's just Moose Jaw, we can take 'er easy,' and next thing you know, they scored five runs on us in the first game. You can't take anybody lightly, no matter how they played last time."
Meanwhile, the Haulers played at a tournament in Brandon June 28-30, posting a 2-2 record.
They began with a 15-1 loss to the Northwest Pirates, then dropped their second game 8-5 against Parkland.
The team rebounded though, defeating Brandon 15-4 and then winning 11-6 over a team comprised of players from St. Boniface and St. Vital.
