Beavers finish third at Westerns

The Saskatchewan Midget AA champion North Battleford Beavers finally met their match at the Western Canadian Midget AA Championships, held Friday to Sunday in St. Albert. Alta.
The Beavers, who had dominated the regular season, had come off a provincial title win over the Humboldt Dodgers by a 12-0 score, and had also beaten the senior Beavers in an exhibition game by a 11-7 count.
But the competition against the other provincial representatives in St. Albert proved stiff.
The AA Beavers finished the Western championships with two wins and two losses. While the team was not outclassed by any means at the tournament, that record wasn't good enough to advance beyond the round robin stage.
"Today, things didn't go as planned," said coach Michael Hudec after the team was defeated 12-2 by Oak River in their final game.
"Still, we're proud of our guys. We ended up in third place overall, so not a bad season."
The Beavers began the tournament on the wrong foot on Friday, as they ended up on the losing end of a 10-5 final score to the host St. Albert Cardinals in their first game.
But the team recovered quickly. The next morning's game with the favored Kamloops River Dogs proved a particularly hard-fought one, with the Beavers prevailing 9-8.
It was a particularly memorable victory because "we were the first team to give them a loss this year," said Hudec.
Kamloops ended up sinking quickly after that loss, dropping their next two games to crash right out of contention.
The Beavers' evening game was against the Lacombe Dodgers, and the Beavers had their best game of the competition with a convincing 11-1 win, thanks to a ten-run inning that blew the game wide-open.
Coming up particularly huge on the day was pitcher Tyrus Thomson, who saved the game against Kamloops and then got the win against Lacombe.
Offensively, Hudec pointed to the whole team contributing to the 20 runs scored on Saturday.
With a 2-1 record going into Sunday's final game, the Beavers were in position to qualify for the finals in their last game against Oak River, with the winner taking on St. Albert for the Western title.
But all hope vanished in a 12-2 defeat. Three runs in the first and five in the second by Oak River put the Manitoba champions ahead to stay.
"We came up against a better Manitoba team," said Hudec. "We came out flat today, but that's sports."
That ended the tournament for the Beavers, who watched as Oak River and St. Albert played for the title. St. Albert Cardinals ended up winning the championship, 5-3.
For North Battleford, it was a tough way to go out after such a successful Midget AA season in Saskatchewan, where they had won their first provincial title since 2005.
"It was a positive experience for the boys," Hudec said of the tournament. "As they often said, you don't finish in third place in Western Canada very often."
While this marks the end of the season for the Beavers, this won't be the last you see of the Beavers. Hudec said you can expect to see much of the roster return to play in North Battleford, either for the AA Beavers again or at the senior level, next season.