The Prince Albert Midget Royals jumped out to an early lead on Sunday and never looked back.

Aided by solid pitching performances from Evan Leclaire and Ben Denysiuk, the Royals downed the visiting Porcupine Plain Blues 3-2 in Sunday’s league semi-final at Andy Zwack Field.

The win sends the Royals to the league championship game later this week, where they’ll face either Carrot River or Hudson Bay.

Royals manager Lance Alexander said it’s welcome surprise to be going to the finals, and credited his team for coming up big when they needed to.

“We came out swinging tonight,” he said. “It was nice to see the bats working the first few innings.”

After taking a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, the Royals added two more runs in the third on an RBI single from Leclaire.

The Blues got one back in the top of the fourth to make it 3-1, but struggled to push more runs across the plate thanks to solid Royals pitching and defence.

“The two pitchers who pitched tonight were bang on,” Alexander said after the game. “They did really well.”

For the rest of this story, please see the June 20 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.