The Southeast Performance Pump midget AAA Twins' record at the 26th annual TruWealth Financial Williston Invitational baseball tournament in North Dakota last weekend may not represent the strong play the club exhibited on the field.
Blaine Kovach, head coach of the Twins, said the team went 2-3 at Williston's Ardean Aafedt Stadium from June 17 to 19 with their wins coming at the start of the tournament allowing them to take first place in their pool. He said after downing the Sturgis Post 33 Titans 7-2 and the Saskatoon Giants 10-2, the team fell 4-1 to the host Williston Keybirds in a tight well-played game by both clubs to close out the round robin.
The Twins then fell 2-1 to the Miles City Outlaws despite having the lead going into the sixth inning. That set them up for a rematch against the Keybirds in the bronze-medal game, which they lost by a score of 7-6.
“We had some walk trouble again and that cost us a few runs,” said Kovach. “With those walks they took the lead, but we ended up trying to come back and we left a lot of guys on base and just couldn't score them in. We had runners at first and third with two out in the last inning and we already got one run down and if we would have scored that guy from third we would have tied the game.”
Kovach said the 2-3 record is an improvement on their 1-4 showing at Williston last year with the big difference being the way they played this time out. He said the first win at the tourney, which was also their first win in six games, got their bats rolling and their pitchers throwing strikes.
“All the games were close,” he said. “There wasn't any blowouts other than the two that we won and the ones that we did lose things went well. We played really well and now we're back to playing good baseball, so it should carry on to our league. We've broke that losing streak and now we should be moving forward and continuing on to get ready for provincials.”
The Twins (10-13) hit the road this weekend for a Saturday afternoon doubleheader against the Parkland Expos (7-6) at Yorkton's Jubilee Park. Kovach said they'll need to get in some pitching and outfielding practice in the lead-up to the games, with a main focus on putting in work in the batter's box.
“Lots of the bats came alive this weekend. Now it's just we got to start moving those runners and scoring them in, so they got to work on their situational stuff.”
