Members of the Kindersley Peewee Royals champions team: beginning in front, from left, Rhett Dimitroff, Levi Krahn, Hunter Smith, Ethan Hilbig, Seth Steven. Centre row, Calvin Feader, Ethan Tremblay, Ben Ortman, Ethan Jepson, Gabe Esto, Jace Reichert, Kaden Elliott. Back row, Head Coach Peter Krahn, Assistant Coach Andy Ortman, Assistant Coach Jason Stevens, Assistant Coach Kevin Reichert.
Kevin McBain
of The Clarion
For the second straight weekend, a Kindersley team has claimed a provincial championship.
This time it was the Peewee Royals winning in fine style with a mercy-rule win Sunday afternoon. The Kindersley Bantams won it all last weekend.
The tournament was held in Moosomin with 10 teams taking part in the Tier 4 provincial championships.
The Peewees won three of their four round-robin games to move on to championship Sunday, where they mercied their final two opponents en route to the championship.
Coach Peter Krahn said the team had a great weekend.
“They played really well. We had contributions from all 12 players,” he said. “Every single player had a positive impact on the team.
“Looking at the draw, we needed to play six games to claim the championship, which is a lot for three days in the heat, but we did just that and I think our depth helped us tremendously this weekend.”
Helping Krahn coach this year were assistants Andy Ortman, Jason Stevens and Kevin Reichert.
In their first game, the Royals took on Assiniboia on Friday at 1 p.m. and played well, scoring a huge, 18-0 win.
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“This was probably our best game that we played this year,” said Krahn. “We really talked about being mentally prepared and resilient and everyone came out ready to play and they showed that.”
Game two was right after, at 3:30 p.m. against Kipling. This one ended up in an 9-8 loss for the Royals.
“We made some errors and gave up some runs early and dug ourselves into a hole,” he said. “But we did come back and played well for the rest of the game and only lost by one.”
Saturday started for the Royals at 10:30 a.m. against Gull Lake, with the game ending in a 9-5 win.
“This was a really tough team. They hit three home runs over the fence on us, but thankfully they were just solo home runs,” said Krahn. “This was a really good game.”
Game two of the day saw the Royals take on Saskatoon, with a 10-5 win for the hometown boys.
“Saskatoon had lost their previous three games and they really didn’t have anything to lose, so they came out hard, but our guys played well.
“We knew coming into Saturday that we had to win both of these games to make it to the semifinals, and we did that,” added Krahn.
Then it was on to the semifinals, where they would take on the Southey Eagles at 10 a.m. on Sunday. This game ended in a 14-3 win for the Royals.
“We played well in this one and I think Southey just ran out of pitching,” said Krahn. “We mercied them which was really good for us, because we were able to get out of the heat about an hour early and save our pitchers.”
It was then on to the final, against Rosetown, who just finished a complete game, said Krahn.
“You could see they were tired out,” he said.
His team took advantage and cruised to a 15-2 victory.
“We came in with three of our four top pitchers still available, so we were in good shape,” he said.
A big factor in having a successful weekend, according to Krahn, was preparation.
“We played against some pretty good competition leading up to the tournament which is what we wanted to do,” he said. “I think that definitely helped us.”
The Royals played in one tournament in Biggar on the July long weekend and lost their first two games against a couple of AA teams. They then went on to beat Assiniboia in the C final, 21-2.
“The tournament was a good one, being able to play against a couple of tough teams who play AA ball, then to play Assiniboia. It gave us an indication of what to expect at provincials,” said Krahn.
They also played Macklin a couple of times, and Unity and North Battleford, all tough teams, in preparation for this past weekend.
This marks the end of the road for minor ball for all Kindersley teams this season, which saw an exceptional amount of players participating.
The Peewees had about 33 players compete this year, making up three Kindersley teams. They were in a mini league with two teams from Rosetown and a team in Eston. The Royals’ team coached by Kevin Reichert, won the league this year.
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