The Southeast Legacy midget AAA Twins saw their season come to a close last Saturday after suffering a crushing 16-2 round-robin loss to the Regina Expos that ended their hopes of making it to playoff action at the 2015 midget AAA Provincial Championships in Melville.
Blaine Kovach, head coach of the Twins, said their pitching was off against the Expos as they struggled with walks and some early runs, plus they weren’t able to get many hits to claw back into the game later on. He said a playoff spot between them and the Expos, who each had identical 2-2 records after two days of round-robin play, came down to defensive run differential and the Twins gave up two or three too many.
“Pressing doesn’t help,” said Kovach, when asked to describe the reason for the second day collapse after winning their first two games July 24. “You can notice it when they’re on the mound. When they’re at bat they’re really pressing, swinging at things that they normally wouldn’t and taking balls that they normally wouldn’t. It’s tough for them at that age, but they battled through and they tried to give her a run. It would have been great to make it on to the semifinals and give us a shot, which I thought we would have been just fine at.”
The Expos would eventually lose to the Saskatoon Giants in the first semifinal game, which set the Giants up for a gold medal match with the North West Prairie Pirates. The Giants beat the Pirates 5-3 to claim gold at provincials.
Kovach said the Twins season should be considered a success despite the early provincials exit. He said the team has struggled winning games the past few years and the 13-17 record they enjoyed this year in Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League play is a good stepping stone for the club moving forward.
“Maybe we’ll get more attention from players around the area that actually want to come try out now and we’ll get some more bodies and calibre ball players and continue building on the program,” he said. “I know we can be better than what we’ve done. We’ll just keep getting better and better from here on.”
