The Innisfail Peewee AA Indians are Baseball Alberta Tier 2 provincial champions.
During the August long weekend, the Peewee AA Indians repeated as provincial champions with a 9-2 victory over the Barrhead Orioles in Red Deer, having won the Peewee A crown in 2013 with largely the same team and coaching.
“Moving up to AA Tier 2 level is quite a significant jump in competition,” said team manager Tricia Simpson. “The coaching staff of Kent Baumgardt, Tom DeRuyter, Al McCullough, Rob Simpson and Shaun Smith was excellent. Each coach put countless hours into this group of hard-working, dedicated boys.”
The Indians played in the five-team round robin against Red Deer, Leduc, Barrhead, and South Jasper Place in Red Deer from August 1 to 3, finishing in first place.
The team beat Red Deer 11-1, South Jasper Place 10-0, Leduc 11-4, and lost to Barrhead 16-6 over their first four games. To decide the provincial title, the top two teams -- Barrhead and Innisfail -- jousted on field on the afternoon of Aug. 3.
Last year, after winning the 2013 A crown, team management hoped to build and develop the boys for further levels of baseball such as AA and AAA. Winning the AA title is just one step in their baseball journey.
Tanner Halerewich and Teagan McCullough shared pitching duties in the final game, with Halerewich taking the honours of the game's most valuable player for his five innings of work.
Other players who contributed strongly to the win included Ethan Alverez, Jess Money, Cleary Simpson, Rees DeRuyter and Kyle Baumgardt.
The team played strongly, and bounced back from an earlier loss to the Orioles in round-robin play to win the title, according to the coaching staff.
“Our bats were hot, and everyone worked together,” said 12-year-old Reed DeRuyter. “All of our hard work showed in the final game and we were ‘on'.”
DeRuyter said next year he would play in the bantam league and knows that “you have to keep trying and never give up.”
For now, the Peewee AA Indians are provincial champions, and summer is only half over.
