The Muenster Red Sox won the Tier 1 Provincials over the weekend. (Facebook/Muenster Red Sox Minor Baseball)

By Mat Barrett

Baseball Provincials

High expectations met by 11U Muenster Red Sox

Jul 26, 2019 | 10:21 AM

It’s been lots of winning for the 11U Muenster Red Sox baseball team not only this season, but last year as well.

The team most recently went to Weyburn and dominated the provincial Tier 1 tournament going 3-0 in pool play, and then going on to defeat the host team to set up a finals matchup with Unity.

Head Coach Derek Rude said it was a back and forth, tight game. The Red Sox were up by two runs heading into the seventh inning, but Unity scored five to go up by three before Meunster tied the game again and forced an extra inning. In the extra inning, Unity scored one run, opening the door for Muenster in the last half inning where they scored two runs to win the gold medal.

The Red Sox outscored their opponents 60-27 over their five games, something that Rude said came just from things coming alive.

“We knew we would be competitive there,” he said. “But there’s certainly some tough teams there and if you don’t come out with your best game then you’re probably not going to do real well.”

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Rude said most of the team had been together the year prior, and being a younger team they won the Tier 3 level of provincials.

“Last year we were a fairly young team, so maybe expectations were a little bit lower and didn’t really know how competitive we would be,” Rude told northeastNOW. “And I guess going into this year, we weren’t as much of an unknown anymore I guess to most teams. We challenged the kids with some pretty tough tournaments as well and tough teams to play, so the expectations were probably a little bit higher this year and maybe a little bit more pressure on them, but they seemed to handle it well.”

Rude said the previous experience of winning may have helped the kids this year, especially when the kids are still so young.

“11U baseball is a lot of ups and downs,” he said. “So you just try and keep your head in the game and don’t get too down when things get rough, then usually those are the teams that do well.”

The provincials is the end of the road this season for the 11U Red Sox, but Rude said soon enough some will be participating in the fall training program.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6