The Estevan U18 AA Brewers are the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League’s AA champions.
The Brewers defeated the Unity Cardinals 9-8 in extra innings Saturday in Regina to win the title. Estevan trailed 8-5 entering the bottom of the eighth, but rallied for four runs.
Estevan had leads of 2-0 after the first inning and 3-1 after three. Unity scored four in the fifth to hold a 5-3 advantage, but the Brewers responded with two in the bottom of the fifth to tie the game.
Neither team scored in the next two frames, so the game went to extra innings.
“It was a roller coaster, back and forth, for all eight innings,” said coach Tim Miller. “It was something else. I’m pretty sure we went through every emotion possible.”
Cade Bendtsen’s two-out single scored Tyler Saigeon for the winning run.
Saigeon had three hits and three runs. He also knocked in two with a double in the bottom of the eighth.
Hunter Stewart, Bendtsen and Kaleb Bechtold were on the mound for the Brewers. Bechtold was credited with the victory.
Estevan began the playoffs by defeating the White Butte Broncos 13-3 on Aug. 2, and the Weyburn Beavers 14-8 three days later. Both games were played at Lynn Prime Park in Estevan.
Between the regular season and the playoffs, the Brewers had a 25-2 record in league play, and won their final 19 games.
Miller believes the win over Unity showed the club’s resiliency once again.
“We’ve been down a few times late in games, and our kids have shown that it doesn’t matter what inning the game is, if we’re behind, we can come back. We just have that powerful of a batting lineup, we’re never out of a ball game.”
The pitchers and the defensive play were solid throughout the season and into the playoffs. There were a couple of hiccups in the semifinal against Weyburn and the final versus Unity, but they managed to minimize the damage.
“That’s what we’ve emphasized with these kids all year long, and even in the past couple of years when we started with this team, is good solid pitching and good solid defence will win you championships, and that was definitely a huge key in winning the championship.”
At the start of the season, Miller knew the Brewers had the potential to have a strong team, but he didn’t expect they would have this record or the winning streak.
“We had a good, strong season last year, so we knew going into this season we had a belief that we could do some good, positive things, and things work out, you win a championship,” said Miller.
Every kid on the team has done their part, and when you put the effort in, Miller said you get a positive outcome.
The Brewers season isn’t finished. They will compete in provincials Aug. 13-15 in Unity. Miller said this will give them a lot of momentum entering provincials.
“It gives these kids the belief that we can win. We played in a couple of pressure games. Even the Weyburn game, the score didn’t reflect the game, because it’s our rivals, so that’s always a high-pressure game, and then it showed yesterday (in the final) that the guys are comfortable enough to be in these situations.”
Unity and Estevan will be in the same pool at provincials, and Miller expects the two teams will be among the contenders at provincials.
