Royals end skid in Camrose
Posted June 15, 2012
The Armena Royals capitalized off a couple errors and added enough insurance behind a stellar pitching performance from kuckleballer Ian Sherbaniuk for a crucial 5-2 win in Camrose Thursday night.
Sherbaniuk fanned four, scattered six hits and gave up just one earned run en route to his second win on the season.
It looked like a Sherbaniuk of 2011, when the right hander won the only two regular season games for the Royals. The young Round Hill area native struggled in his first two starts against Camrose and Bardo, before putting up a more-Sherbaniukesk performance on his old midget home diamond.
Armena came out early on starter Marcel Lesoway and notched a run on an RBI single by Jason Buzzell to score Adam Johnson. Johnson would score again on a single by Joel Boettger in the third, before Cole Tomaszeski, 0-for-his-last-11 walked with the bases juiced to make it 3-0 Armena.
The Roadrunners responded with a run in their half of the third when Alex Roth led off with a single then stole second before driven in on a line drive single by Eldon Banack. Roth appeared gunned down at second on the attempted steal, but was called safe.
But the Royals continued to get good defence and pitching. They added a run each in the fourth and fifth with RBI singles by Landon Miller and Kyle Ellis respectively.
Sherbaniuk performed yeomen work in the final frames. The only blemish being an unearned run when Kyle Ellis tried to gun down a runner heading for third. The ball took an amazingly high hop off the astro-turf like surface scoring the Roadrunners second run.
The Royals, Roadrunners and Holden Blue Jays all sit tied now in the standings heading to next week. The Camrose County duo square off again Tuesday night in Armena for the first ever Armena community night. The Royals then host Leduc on the back end of the two-game homestand. Game times are 7 p.m.
Posted on June 6, 2012 by Jason Buzzell
