NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Zach Hauck of the McCoy Colts senior baseball team admires his hit in the sixth inning of the Colts 8-0 semi-finals win over the Lethbridge Collegiate Rams Wednesday night at McCoy field.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
How can you not be romantic about baseball?
It’s a famous line from the baseball movie Moneyball but it also aptly describes how the Medicine Hat senior high school baseball season is wrapping up.
Both the Hat High Hawks and McCoy Colts Sr. baseball teams won their semi-finals matches Wednesday night to set up an inner-city provincial final matchup next week. The two teams battled it out twice in the regular season, and split the results 1-1.
McCoy head coach Cole Schreiber spoke to the News after the Colts 8-0 win over the LCI Rams at McCoy field and said he was happy with the team effort in the victory.
“Can’t say enough about everybody doing something to help the team win tonight,” Schreiber said. “Offensively, a couple guys with some big hits, pitcher Caleb was fantastic as he usually is, and defensively we made a lot of great plays.”
The Colts finished the regular season in first place of the Lethbridge league and earned a bye through the quarter finals to the semis Wednesday. Caleb Garrecht pitched all seven innings Wednesday, allowing only four hits and striking out five. The Colts were led offensively by Zach Hauck, who had two hits and two RBIs. The Grade 12 Colt said he enjoyed stepping up to the plate and is excited for the finals.
“We’re gonna try as hard as we can and we know we can beat them and they know they can beat us, so it should be a really good game,” Hauck said. “Hopefully we can get on the bat as well as we did the first game.”
Just across the field at Jeffries park, the Hawks, who finished second in the league, beat the CCH Cougars 15-6 to secure their spot in the finals. Heading into the bottom of the third inning Hat High trailed 5-3 before scoring eight runs in the frame en-route to the win.
Hawks head coach Lyall Foran said it wasn’t the prettiest of wins but said they are happy to get the result.
“Being able to bounce back from that and really kind of play to our potential was huge for us,” Foran said. “Feels good to kind of rectify that one loss that we had against them (in the regular season) and definitely show what our strengths are and show who we are.”
Trevin Ressler led the Hawks at the plate for a second straight night, as the Grade 11 student played a big offensive role in the Hawks’ 15-3 quarter finals win over the Chinook Coyotes on Tuesday. Against the Cougars on Wednesday, Ressler had five hits, two RBIs and three runs scored.
He said it feels great to help his team get to provincials and is looking forward to the finals.
“It’s gonna be a lot of fun. It’s always fun playing against our in town rival,” Ressler said. “We have a couple of good bats going into the game and couple of good arms coming.”
Payton Eddy pitched six innings for the Hawks in the win and had six strikeouts. He said the Colts are his favourite team to face and said Hat High will have to stay in their own heads if they want to win.
The inner-city finals matchup also features Schreiber and Foran going head to head after having spent years on the same side of the game. The younger Schreiber played for and coached alongside Foran before joining the Colts.
Foran said the two are good friends and he is excited to go head to head.
“Obviously, I don’t want to wish him too much success, but I enjoy the fact that he is experiencing that success and he’s going to be a good one for a long time,” Foran said.
That finals matchup goes next Wednesday night at Athletic park.
