Once the clouds began to part in Muenster on July 19, everyone knew there would be a great weekend of baseball at the 15U Provincial Tournament. The Muenster Red Sox hoped to cap another successful season with a provincial win through the three day tournament running from July 19-21. The audience was treated to a nail-biting slugfest in the Muenster semi-final with Lloydminster on Sunday, July 21 followed by a provincial final for the books against a strong Unity Cardinals team.

Muenster ran the table in their preliminary games. Their opener on Friday, July 19 was a solid 6-0 victory over the Cardinals from Unity. They followed up on Saturday with a pair of wins. The first was a 10-7 win over the North East Rangers. The Red Sox followed up with a 7-3 victory over the Regina Pacers.

With no tie-breakers in play, this led to a pair of semi-final games featuring Pool A’s only undefeated team, the Weyburn Whitecap Beavers going up against the 2-1 Unity Cardinals. The Cards put their bats to work and emerged victorious by a score of 13-8.

In the Pool B semi-final, the Red Sox had their work cut out for them as the Lloydminster Twins took a one run lead into the final frame. With Muenster’s final at bat and runners on second and third, Red Sox first baseman Ethan Hinz hit a walk off double to score a pair and edge out the gritty Lloydminster team 6-5.

The final was an edge of the seat marathon as the game see-sawed back and forth with the Sox having to play catch up against the Cardinal’s bats. The war of attrition continued as pitch counts ran up and both teams saw their bullpen’s depleting. Unity scored three runs off the top, while Muenster answered back with a pair in the second and would tie the game at 3 all in the third.

In the fifth, Unity’s bats came alive with five runs driven in and another on a plate error to give the Cardinals a commanding 11-5 lead. However, a triple from Blaise Athmer scored three runs for Muenster bringing the Sox back into striking distance. Three more runs in the fifth brought Muenster even again at 11-11.

The Sox and the Cards traded single runs in the sixth inning to remain deadlocked at 12 each. The two teams continued to trade runs bringing the Red Sox up to the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning behind by a score of 15-14. Muenster’s Bauer Damanski hit an RBI single to deadlock the game once again at 15 all.

The Muenster defense held strong, including a throw out on an attempted Unity steal to third base to go into the bottom of the extra inning still tied. With two away and runners on second and third, Muenster’s Joel Bauml stepped up to drive in the winning run to give the Sox a hard-fought 16-15 win.

Asked what was going through his head at the moment he stepped to the plate, Bauml said, “I knew I just needed a base hit to score the runner. But there were a lot of nerves going through my head. It was scary.” Bauml knew his main motivation was to continue to Western Canadian playdowns, but mostly he said, “For my team.”

Red Sox coach Garret Korte is no stranger to tight games, but this, he claims, was something different.

”That was probably one of the craziest games I’ve ever been a part of and I’ve been through a lot of baseball games.” Korte confirmed that the high score had to do with tired pitchers, admitting that both teams had to test the depths of their pitching rosters.

After two come from behind wins to secure the provincial championship, Korte laughed, “I called these kid’s the ‘heart attack kids’ today because that’s what I think they gave me.”

Judging by the responses in the stands, the fans weren’t far from the same condition. The Muenster Red Sox continue on to Westerns in Strathmore, Alberta in a few weeks’ time.