The Sask Five 18U AAA Giants claimed the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League Championship Title after defeating the Regina Athletics 2-0 on August 23, in Regina.
Along with winning the league championship the Giants are also the 18U AAA provincial champions, even thought there wasn’t an official provincial tournament.
“When you win the league and you’re declared the provincial champions, that’s awesome,” said Sask Five Giants head coach Joey Vanneste. “The kids earned it, they worked hard for it and were rewarded for it at the end of the day.”
The match against the Athletics was a pitching duel, as both teams displayed quality pitching. However, the Giants obviously won that battle, as starting pitcher Cooper Price pitched a complete game, only giving up three hits.
“Cooper has pitched a lot for us this year and he has been a very strong pitcher,” Vanneste said. “We told Cooper ‘go out, pitch your best game and trust your defence behind you.’ ”
In a low scoring game, the defence also had to be on point and make crucial plays behind the pitcher and that’s exactly what the Giants did.
“Our defence was very, very strong, as it has been all year long. Any chance Regina may have had to get on base, the guys shut it down,” Vanneste said.
Sask Five actually had the bases loaded with no out in the second inning. But a Sask Five batter grounded into a double play, scoring a run, and that is all the Giants would get in what looked like a promising inning.
“The pitching was strong on both sides and not a lot of hits on either side; and good defensive plays which made the game go by very quick. But at the end of the day, we came away with two runs and they didn’t get any,” Vanneste said
The Giants had never played the Athletics in the regular season, because teams just played other clubs in their receptive division. So both teams faced a challenge in that aspect.
For the Giants, Vanneste said he just told his team to play the way they have been all season.
I told them, ‘you got to put it all on the line, this is your time. It’s a one game championship, don’t have any regrets, just play as hard as you can, and bring home a championship.’ And they did, they played an outstanding game,” he said.
The top four teams from the respective north and south divisions qualified for the league playoffs. The one and four seed and two and three seed in the respective divisions played each other and the winner of those games advanced to the respective final. All quarter-final and semifinal games were played on August 21.
Sask Five defeated the Saskatoon Cubs 15-4 in its first playoff game, and the Giants earned a 12-2 win against the Saskatoon Diamondbacks in the North Division Final, as the mercy rule came in to effect after five innings.
In the game against the Cubs, the Giants found themselves in an early hole, facing a 3-0 deficit after the first inning.
The Cubs were also threatening in the top of the third inning by having the bases loaded with no outs. However, pitcher Chantze Pauls threw some quality pitches resulting in ground outs.
The first out came on a fielder’s choice as the Giants went to the plate to erase the runner. During the next at bat, Sask Five turned a key double play. The first baseman threw the ball to home plate to get an out, then the catcher fired the ball back to first base to get the batter.
“We roll a double-play like that, and there’s so much momentum that came out of that,” Vanneste said.
Sask Five ended up scoring eight runs in the bottom half of that inning to take a commanding lead.
The Cubs had a golden opportunity to get back in the game in the fourth inning, with the bases loaded and two out, but relief pitcher Cooper Price recorded a big strikeout to end the threat.
The Giants continued to have success on offence scoring at least on run in the fourth fifth and sixth innings to win the game.
In the matchup against the Diamondbacks, it was a very close game early on as the Giants only had a 4-2 lead after four innings.
Sask Five had some timely hits and capitalized on some fielding mistakes and plated eight runs in the fifth inning. What was very impressive was, the Giants scored all eight runs with two outs.
The D-Backs didn’t score in their half of the fifth inning which led to the game being mercied, as Giants pitcher Ethan Campbell pitched a complete game.
Vanneste said the Giants played their best ball of the season against the Cubs and Diamondbacks, to earn a spot in the league championship final.
