U18 AA Canucks Sputter in Sunday Afternoon Loss

After a recent 6 - 0 sweep at a Melville tournament the U18 AA Canucks looked like the team to beat.

They were walking on air having already qualified for Tier One in provincials.

However on Sunday afternoon the bubble burst and the Canucks headed back to earth falling 12 - 2 to the visiting Regina A’s.

The Canucks had a poor start but they managed to hold the A’s to a pair of runs in the first two innings.

Starting pitcher Russell MacDonald pulled a muscle in his leg in the game and had to be replaced early in the game.

His replacement on the mound was Avery Nielsen who has been throwing a lot of heat lately for the Canucks.

The final Canucks pitcher was Nolan Novak who used a combination off speed sinker balls and fastballs to the chagrin of the A’s batters.

The blowout innings for the A’s were the fifth inning - where they scored four runs - and the seventh inning - where they scored three runs.

At bat the Canucks had some strong batting but unfortunately much of it was directly at an A’s defender for an easy out.

Later in the game the Canucks’ bats came alive with hits that avoided the A’s defenders and put the home team on base.

Canucks assistant head coach Darcy MacDonald was philosophical about the loss seeing positives in the Canucks play.

“They got oh the bats early. They were hitting hard and hitting holes, MacDonald said.

“We hit the ball well today. We just hit it right at them every time we hit the ball hard. There seemed to be somebody right there camping under it. Sometimes that’s the way baseball goes,” he said.

“We want to keep hitting the ball hard and hopefully next time hit the holes.”

The First Inning defensively was tough on the Canucks - one dropped ball and an overthrow - helped put the A’s on the scoreboard.

Despite their bad luck the Canucks broke away from errors.

“Yeah the errors went away. We had a couple of hard hit balls at us and tried to make some plays on them. The boys battled through,” he said, adding “it’s a tough game to play when you’re down that much early. They battled through and kept going.“

Late in the game the Canucks had success on the bats.

“We were figuring that guy (pitcher) out. I was hoping he’d stay in for the rest of the game. We had a few on them at the end of the game to crack the goose egg,” he said.

A big highlight for the Canucks is that this season - despite the ups and downs - they have qualified for Tier One in provincials.

“The league play really doesn’t matter that much but we want to finish strong obviously. And take some good baseball into provincials.”