EDMONTON - On a hot and windy May long weekend, the Innisfail Merchants Junior AAA baseball team travelled to Castle Downs in Edmonton to participate in a non-traditional doubleheader by taking on the expansion Barrhead Orioles and host Community Park Reds.
Although the Barrhead team is new to the junior league they are no strangers to junior baseball, as they are made up of members of last year’s provincial winning Slave Lake Heat.
The Merchants were up against it as they faced off against league veteran Lee Worobec, who was able to silence the Innisfail bats that encountered such enormous success during their opening weekend seven days earlier.
Despite giving up solo home runs to newcomer Jayden Buxton and Cody Thompson, Worobec was able to hold Innisfail to six hits, while striking out eight Merchants. Thompson’s second inning home run marked his third in as many games and saw him continue his torrid pace to start the season.
Innisfail’s first game pitching was handled by the duo of Zeke Leuke, and first-time Merchant Garrett Holowath. The pair combined to strike out 10 Barrhead batters in six innings while scattering four hits.
The defence would let down the Merchant pitchers as two timely errors cost the team the ability to remain undefeated on the season, and Barrhead would triumph over the Merchants by a score of 6-2.
The back end of the double-dip on May 20 would pit the Merchants against last-year’s expansion Community Park Reds. Facing an undermanned Reds team, the Merchants seemed to take the second-year team for granted and found themselves in an early deficit as the Reds would pull ahead with a four-run third inning and take a 5-3 lead.
Starter Dustin Larsen could only watch, as bad hops and sloppy defensive play would create a deficit. However, he would not waver as he fanned eight Reds players and continued to battle the scrappy young Edmonton team.
Innisfail would once again rely on the home run, as they would match their home run total from earlier in the day when Griffin Moline and Clayton Kary took the Edmonton starter deep in the third and sixth innings. The Merchants would eventually beat up on the Reds' relief pitchers by tacking on six runs in the sixth inning, and four more in the final frame, eventually taking the contest 14-5.
The Merchants returned to league action on May 27 with a traditional doubleheader against the Community Park Reds in Innisfail.
The Merchants continue to welcome two more Mini-Merchants before each game. This opportunity allows a young community member to join the team during their warm-up and present the team’s lineup card while participating as a member of the Merchants during the first inning of play. All details and future scheduled league games can be found on the team’s website at www.merchantsbaseball.ca
