After taking a step back in a home doubleheader on May 29, the KPC Estevan mosquito AAA Sluggers got back on track with a hard-fought performance at a Weyburn Beavers tournament last weekend.
The Sluggers fell 4-1 to the Beavers in the A-side final at Weyburn's Jubilee Park on June 5. Overall, the team went 2-2 and seemed to continually play better as the four-team tournament wore on.
Ryan Siever, head coach of the Sluggers, said they were hitting the ball well in the A-side final, but couldn't seem to get anything past the Beavers defence. He said the Sluggers were actually leading the game 1-0 until the bottom of the fifth inning thanks to an outstanding performance on the mound by Nic Hins, but a couple timely hits by Weyburn in the bottom of the fifth did them in.
The Sluggers started the tournament on June 4 the way they finished it, except in a higher scoring fashion. The team lost 17-16 to the Beavers thanks in part to a few costly errors in the final inning.
Later that afternoon, Ty Hoste led the Sluggers to an 11-8 win over Melville by dominating on the mound. Early the next morning the Sluggers found their groove beating Swift Current 12-1 on a strong pitching performance by Tanyan Strudwick.
“I definitely felt that we moved ahead with our game,” said Siever. “We hit the ball pretty well and we had a couple errors in the first game, but we cleaned those up in the next few which was nice to see. I feel where we're back on track to where we want to be.”
The Sluggers are back at home this weekend with a Saturday afternoon doubleheader against the Swift Current Indians and a Sunday afternoon doubleheader against the Regina Buffalos. Siever said the team will try to have a good practice this week and hopefully keep up the strong play moving forward.
