The Prince Albert AA 18U Royals came about as close as possible to winning a provincial tournament without reaching the final.
The Royals lost two games all weekend at the 18U Baseball Provincials in Estevan, both to the eventual champion Weyburn Beavers, the last of which was a tiebreaker game to get into the playoffs.
Head coach Troy Semenchuk said he was proud of how the squad played.
“The past couple of years, the 18U team out of Prince Albert hasn’t really done anything at provincials and we wanted to change that,” Semenchuk said. “We knew it was going to be tough.
“No one expected anything out of us based on the last couple of years and where we’d been. We surprised a lot of people that weekend.”
The Royals entered the tournament in a pool with Weyburn, Moose Jaw, and the host Estevan Brewers. They opened the tournament with a 7-6 win over Brewers. Semenchuk said it was a complete team performance.
“We got an unbelievable pitching performance from Isaiah Parent, and our bats were just on fire,” he said. “We came out hitting and we scored early and often and held on for a huge win against them.”
The Royals followed that with an 11-4 loss to Weyburn and an 11-7 win over the Moose Jaw Canucks. That left them in a three-way tie for first, after Weyburn, Estevan and Prince Albert all finished with 2-1 records.
Prince Albert had to face Weyburn a second time in a tiebreaker game on Sunday. Although the Royals went up 10-0 early in the game, the Beavers battled back for a 15-14 win.
“They slowly chipped away at it,” Semenchuk said. “We added a few more runs along the way, but it was tough. We were up 14-8 in the sixth inning. We were six outs away from advancing, and a couple costly errors hurt us, but we’ll learn from that and we’ll be back to fight another day.”
Despite the loss, Semenchuk was happy with his team’s progress. After not winning a game at provincials in 2024, and completely missing the 2023 tournament, Semenchuk said making it to the tie-breaker game was a satisfying accomplishment.
“It’s never easy to finish the season with a loss,” he said. “The guys know I hate losing probably more than anyone, but I was so proud of them. We turned so many heads and did so many great things.”
Semenchuk credited two of the club’s graduating players, Isaiah Parent and Brandon Moose, with helping improve the club’s year-over-year performance. The team finished 3-25 two years ago, and Semenchuk said Parent and Moose were a big part of the change.
“We turned it around a bit last year and made it into Tier 1 AA provincials. Didn’t win a game. This year (we played) a meaningful game on Sunday, and I think kind of the legacy that Isaiah and Brandon leave,” Semenchuk said. “I think that’s going to help push us into taking that next step next year in Tier 1 AA provincials.”
The season isn’t over yet for Parent. He’ll join fellow pitcher Jaxson Robertson at the Western Canadian 18U championship after Weyburn picked them up for the tournament.
Western Canadians run from Aug. 15-17 in St. Albert, Alta.
