Junior Cardinals claimed their second straight South-East Senior Baseball League (SESBL) crown on Tuesday night with a 5-2 win over the Willowbrook Royals.
Logan Calanchie pitched a complete game for the Cardinals, who swept the best-of-five series with Willowbrook 3-0.
As Cardinals coach Gary Lamb points out, Calanchie's standout game did not come as a surprise.
"Logan's a horse. He comes from a line of horses and they're all thoroughbreds... When Logan's got the fire in his eyes, he (comes) to play."
Lamb was also quick to credit some of the Cardinals role players Mike Cross and Mark Jacobs for their efforts in the victory. Cross and Jacobs stepped up and played important roles in the series-clinching victory.
The SESBL title was a fitting end to a fairly dominant junior and senior season for the Junior Cardinals. Lamb says that his squad has responded in big moments all year long.
"Our guys just seem to know when they have to step up and away they go, it's an amazing bunch of kids," he emphasizes.
The strength of the Junior Cardinals has always been their depth and quality of players. Lamb indicates that coach Brian Trollope deserves the credit for making that happen.
"All this credit goes to Brian Trollope. He's the guy that found all the players and I get the easy job, I just get to stand out there and wave guys around," he says.
The only thing left on the schedule for the Cardinals now is the Canadian National Champions in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec from August 18-23.
Lamb points out that the Junior Cards are fully ready for their next challenge and the step up in play.
"They know they're going to Nationals. For some of them this is the last time that they get to go but they all know and they've been pumped about this since we played last weekend here against Raymore. All these kids are really good ball players," he mentions.
The Cardinals will open up the Nationals tournament with a game against Manitoba on August 19.
They will then play a two-game set the following day versus Quebec and Nova Scotia.
"Our guys are turned up and they're ready to go. It's just a matter of, once we get there we'll see how it plays out."
"Our guys are turned up and they're ready to go. It's just a matter of, once we get there we'll see how it plays out," Lamb adds.
The Junior Cards had one more highlight to their busy week.
The team claimed the title at the annual Spyhill baseball tournament this past Sunday thanks to wins over the Spyhill Combines and the Westman Diamond Dawgs.
The Cardinals won their first game on Sunday over the hometown Combines 10-5. They then defeated the Diamond Dawgs 3-0 to win the crown.
The Cardinals have participated in the Spy Hill tournament for three years running and have come away as champions every time.
"We kind of expected that we'd be the top team there," Coach Brian Trollope explains.
The event was a useful tune-up for the Cards on their way to Nationals and a fun way to gain exposure to other junior and senior team's throughout the region.
"Every year they seem to have new teams to compete against," Trollope says.
While the team consisted of mostly Yorkton Cardinals players, Trollope points out that they brought along some of the Yorkton Yankees and Melville-area players in place of the Cardinals who wanted some time off.
"We told anybody that wanted the weekend off that they could have it. And then (we) asked some other ball players from Melville and the Yankees if they wanted to join us and just have a fun weekend."
The Junior Cardinals would like to include a special thank you to Morley Clarke for all his hard work in putting on the event.
