Milleteers take B side in Camrose

The Milleteers did a little Jekyll and Hyde impression this weekend in the Camrose Road Runner Invitational. In the first game they looked absolutely awful and were whipped 12-0 by a junior team from Provost playing their first game of the year. Starter Murray Doyle was knocked around pretty good, and he definitely did not receive any help from his defense. On offense the Milleteers only managed one infield single, despite most of the guys using aluminium bats as they were permitted in this tournament. The only positive that could be taken from this one sided beating was that Shawn Brinkworth continued his career resurrection on the mound as he continued to improve in a mop up relief appearance as he struck four and gave up five hits in three inning of work.

In the second game the Milleteers faced off against the Armena Royals, who due to a scheduling anomaly, they have not faced yet this year. Veteran ace Scott Peterson got the start against his former team and looked slightly vulnerable early as a few hits found the holes, but he quickly righted the ship and cruised the rest of the way. A couple errors under the lights made things interesting as first baseman Steve Pahl and left fielder Brent Thomas both lost a ball in the lights, but other than that the defense was solid. The offense took an inning to get going, but in the second with runners on Brett Rikstad mashed a ground rule double to get things rolling and Kevin Doyle followed next inning with a massive blast to right field. After that the offense kept rolling and eventually mercied the Royals in six innings.

In the B Final the Milleteers faced a familiar foe in the Ryley Rebels as this would be the fifth meeting between the teams this year, with Ryley taking the last game with a come from behind win. Getting the start for the Milleteers was veteran Steve Pahl, who was going on short rest for the second start in a row. Despite not having much of anything on the fastball Pahl used his off speed stuff to keep the Rebels off balance and finished with six strikeouts, and only gave up three runs. The only real blemish was a third inning two run shot given up to Dylan Solberg, who was using a wood bat, so it was no cheapy. Offensively the Milleteers capitalized on wildness from the Rebels starter and some errors to get runners on, and then they cashed them in with some timely hits to score enough to mercy the Rebels in five innings.

It was a good thing the Milleteers finished early however as they were playing their fifth game in four days and many players were starting to come down with minor tweaks and pulls. It looked as though 58 year old coach Brian Pahl was going to have grab a glove and go out there, but the Milleteers managed to score that all important seventh run to end the game early.

Posted on June 8, 2009 by Steven Pahl