Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
The 2018 Fertile Valley Baseball League regular season came to an end on Monday night, and a pair of Kindersley teams are part of the playoff picture.
The Kindersley Raiders have secured a first-round bye thanks to finishing in second place in the FVBL standings with a record of 9-2. The Kindersley Stallions finished in fourth place and they are set to play the Outlook River Hawks in the first round quarter-final series.
The Stallions finished their sophomore season in the league with a record of 8-3. The five-time league champion Rosetown Angels finished in third place with a record of 9-2, and first place was locked up by the Oyen Eagles with their 10-1 record.
It was the Eagles first year in the league, but the team is far from new. The Eagles spent several seasons playing in the Sask-Alta Baseball League, and the team has won its fair share of championships in the past.
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The River Hawks finished at 5-6 on the season and the final playoff spot went to the Elrose Aces after posting a 5-6 record. Rosetown plays Elrose in the second quarter-final match up. Oyen heads into the playoffs on a five-game winning streak and Rosetown is on an eight-game winning streak, but the other four playoff teams are coming off losses.
The other Kindersley teams finished in the bottom three places in the 12-team league. The seventh to twelfth place teams were the Eatonia Wheat Kings (4-7), Kyle Yellow Jackets (4-7), Beechy Breakers (3-7-1), Kindersley Klippers (3-8), Kindersley Cubs (3-8) and Kindersley Royals (2-8-1).
Oyen led the league in runs for and runs against with 111 runs scored and only 40 runs allowed over the season. Rosetown was second with 106 runs scored and Outlook was third with 101 runs scored. The Raiders were a close fourth with 100 runs scored.
The Raiders and Stallions were tied for second in runs against allowing only 51 runs in their 11 games. The Klippers gave up 121 runs to lead the league in runs against and the Royals scored the fewest runs with only 39 runs on the season.
Austin Jamieson, a player and spokesperson for the Stallions, said on Monday that the first game of the Outlook series will be played on Tuesday or tonight, and Game 2 is scheduled in Outlook on Thursday night. If the serious goes three games, the deciding game will be played in Kindersley next Monday or Tuesday.
People could check www.fvbl.ca for updates on games, but no playoff games were listed as of Tuesday morning. The Stallions last played on June 28 and Jamieson said the team has held a couple of practices to stay sharp.
The Stallions head into the playoffs on a two-game losing streak after losing 9-3 to Outlook on June 28 and 5-3 to the Raiders on June 26, but Jamieson said the players have had enough time to get over the losses and he believes the taste of losing will help to motivate the team.
He noted that the team’s only other loss came at the hands of the Eagles, but any of the games they lost could have gone either way. The team was missing some key players for the match up in Outlook, but it should not be a problem for the series.
“I think we’ve got a pretty good shot,” Jamieson said, recognizing that any of the league’s top teams could win on any occasion if the bounces go their way. “We should have, basically, our full line up there every game.”
The Stallions lost in the 2017 FVBL final against the Raiders, so he said he believes the result will also serve as motivation for the team to get back to the final. He recognized that he knows it will be tough because the team could have to play Oyen in a semi-final.
Brady Newmeyer, a player and spokesperson for the Raiders, said the team is looking forward to having the first-round bye, but the team will be busy because it is playing in the senior men’s division of the Western Canadian Oldtimers & Senior Men’s Baseball Championship in Kindersley this weekend.
He noted that the team must wait to find out its opponent in the semi-final and the Raiders could end up playing one of three teams. Depending on how things play out, the Raiders could play Rosetown, Outlook or the Stallions, but not the Aces.
The defending league champs are comfortable not knowing their opponent because they have beat the Angels and Stallions to win their two FVBL championships, Newmeyer said. The team has four or five pitchers that could start any game, so it is nice to have multiple arms ready to go.
“We had a great year,” Newmeyer said, adding that he believes the team has the experience needed to achieve success in the playoffs and to avoid getting rattled in games regardless of what happens in a game. “We won seven straight (games).”
He said the Raiders played Oyen in the second game of the season and they could have beaten the league’s top team if not for one bad inning. The team lost players to the Cubs, but the team was still able to maintain a high level of play thanks to its veterans, he added.
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