U18 AAA Red Deer Rangers cinderella run at BAEL provincials ends in heartbreak

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They fell to the Parkland Twins 7-6 in extra innings at the Webber Academy Athletic Park in Calgary.

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Head coach Jeff MacDonald said he couldn’t be more proud of his team.

“We just snuck into the provincial championships as the sixth-placed of eight teams in the Baseball Alberta Elite League in our last couple of games of the season,” he said. “We had to fight and claw all year. It wasn’t easy for our team, and we had to grind. We’ve got a couple of third-year players that are some of the top players in the league and then a lot of younger guys.”

Unlike the Rangers, the Twins cruised through most of the season. Parkland finished as the top team in the league by the end of the regular season with a 27-6-0 record before going undefeated in four games at provincials.

Red Deer finished 19-21-0 at the end of the regular season before going 2-2 at provincials.

“I consider what we did at provincials as pretty amazing for that group of players,” MacDonald said.

The Rangers head coach said that their run to the finals was led by some masterful pitching performances, including one by Kade Strandquist, who threw a one-hit game in the first match of the tournament against St. Albert. Red Deer defeated their opponents 7-1, and Strandquist struck out 11 batters.

In the next game, the Rangers lost to the Twins 17-4, only to bounce back on Sunday with a 10-0 shutout over the Calgary Cubs in the semi-finals.

The Rangers booked their ticket to the finals after another great pitching performance by Chase Lundstrom, who pitched a complete game. He only gave up four hits, and on the other side, Red Deer came up with some timely hits.

In the final, the Rangers gave it their all.

Tied at three headed into the sixth inning, Red Deer’s Owen MacDonald hit a three-run home run to lead 6-3.

Red Deer held onto that lead until the final (seventh) inning when the Twins rallied to tie it. In extra innings, Parkland earned a walk-off victory in the bottom of the eighth.

“It was a tough loss for the boys, but they showed a lot of resilience and character throughout the year. I think that transitioned us to have a good provincials because we played loose all tournament. Everyone was picking each other up and playing for each other, so overall it was a successful year,” he said.

“At the start of the year, in the rankings and the coaches poll, I think they had us ranked seventh out of eight teams. For us to get all the way within a couple of outs of winning a provincial championship is a pretty big accomplishment for the boys.”

MacDonald believes they could return a good chunk of this year’s team for next season but will lose some veteran players who are graduating. He said a core group of players should return.

“There isn’t one player on our roster who didn’t have a big moment in the last two weeks of the season to ensure we made it to the provincial final,” he added. “We couldn’t have done it without any one of those guys.”