Beavers ready for provincial test

The North Battleford Midget AA Beavers hope to capitalize on their home field advantage this weekend.

The Beavers will welcome five teams to town starting Friday as they host the 2016 Baseball Saskatchewan Midget AA Tier 1 Provincial Championships at Beaver Lions Stadium.

One of the teams that will be in town is the Moose Jaw Canucks, who the Beavers will be looking to get some revenge against after they lost the Saskatchewan Premier Midget AA Baseball League playoff final in Humboldt on Sunday by a score of 8-7.

Through the first six innings, the Beavers looked to have things in control as they held a 7-3 lead.

The Canucks roared back in the top of the seventh inning, however, as they scored five unanswered runs to pull off the upset.

Jared Schmidt led the way at the plate Sunday afternoon with three hits and a pair of RBIs. Joel Revet also drove home a pair of runs in the loss.

Revet and Andrew Hudec each came up with a pair of hits to help the Beavers out on offence.

On the mound, Gavin Nolin had three strikeouts in the loss while Brett Benoit send a pair of batters back to the bench.

The Canucks, who entered the playoffs as the fourth overall seed with a 12-7 record, had a pair of RBIs from Reece Helland to help them to the upset win.

On the mound, Dawson Kurz was impressive as he struck out five Beavers batters in 5 and 2/3 innings of work.

Although the two sides won’t square off in the round-robin, the Beavers will still have some tough competition ahead of them as they look to clinch a spot in the semifinals on Sunday afternoon.

The Beavers will open up the tournament at 6 p.m. Friday night against the Regina Blue Jays.

Saturday they will go up against the Lumsden Cubs at 11:30 a.m. and the Humboldt Dodgers at 6:30 p.m. to wrap up their round-robin slate.

The Regina Buffalos are the other team competing in the tournament.

The top four teams in the round-robin standings will advance to the playoffs Sunday. The semifinals will get underway at noon with the championship game slated to begin at 3 p.m.

The Beavers were impressive in the SPBL regular season. They led the 12-team loop with a 17-2-1 record and their 201 runs scored was the most in the entire league.

They also feature many of the top players in the league. Gavin Nolin and Dylan Schaefer were second and third in the league for batting average with .557 and .549 respectively. Nolin also led the entire SPBL with 34 hits and 20 runs batted in during the regular season.

The Beavers’ pitching has been well balanced throughout the season. Tyrus Thomson was tied for fifth in the league for strikeouts with 31 and walked only four batters in seven appearances. Gavin Wourms had a 1.29 earned run average after his seven trips to the mound and Paul Cubbon had a team best 3-1 record.

A number of the top players in the SPBL this season will be in North Battleford for the provincial tournament.

The Buffalos feature three of the top base-stealers in the province in Steven Schemenauer, Hudson Paul and Christopher Stoner.

They also have a stellar hurler in Jamie Grandel. He struck out 62 batters and had a league best 7-2 record for the Buffalos.

A dual threat for the Canucks is Ryan Botterill. In addition to striking out 41 batters this season, he’s also one of the fastest runners in Saskatchewan after winning the junior boys 100m high school title in June.

Despite not having anyone in the top five for RBI’s, the Cubs have the best offence of the six teams that will be in town this weekend after driving in 219 runs this summer.