NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
A rain storm in the sixth inning forced the postponement of the provincial high school baseball finals between the Medicine Hat High Hawks and Monsignor McCoy Colts on Wednesday. The Colts led 6-1 at the time of postponement.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Wednesday’s provincial high school baseball finals didn’t end with gloves flying in celebration or a Gatorade shower on the winning coach, but were instead put on pause due to rain showers.
The Alberta Premier Baseball League championship hosted at Athletic Park was postponed in the top of the sixth inning due to rain, with the Monsignor McCoy Colts leading the Medicine Hat High Hawks 6-1. The game is scheduled to resume Friday at Jeffries field with the time to be determined.
Colts head coach Cole Schreiber said they will have a challenge with having to maintain their momentum to the postponed game but says they wanted to win the right way.
“At the end of the day as a coach and, I think our players would agree, we want to win the proper way,” Schreiber said. “This is tough for both teams, it’s far from ideal, but to win in a full seven or however long it takes, that’s the most fair thing to do and shows a little bit of sportsmanship on our end.”
With two days of school and two nights sleeps in between Wednesday’s postponed finals and the game-to-resume Friday, there’s a lot of time for either team to lose focus. Schreiber says the key for the Colts will be to not look too far ahead.
“Guys are probably going to be chatting with each other so we have to keep a level head through all of that and understand this game is far from over,” Schreiber said. “That team is too good over there to think that we have it won, we still have six outs we have to get defensively. If we show up thinking the game’s over on Friday, we better be careful.
“We have to understand we’re a good group but that group over there can make anything happen at any time.”
Across the field, the Hawks shared the same sentiment about playing the game until the final out. Hawks head coach Cam Rittinger says having two local teams helps the ability to resume the game at a later date.
“We wouldn’t expect another team to travel up to finish it, we’d probably cancel it,” Rittinger said. “Both sides want to finish to the game, they don’t want to take a win on a rain-out and we’re wanting to play until the last out, give us the longest chances and see what happens.”
Both coaches thanked the fans cheering for either team for sticking around as long as they did and supporting them through the rain.
“I was happy to see fans out with two rival home teams, it’s good for baseball and I’m glad they all stuck around,” Rittinger said. “There’s been a lot of the work they’ve done here at Athletic Park, all the coverings and stuff Greg Morrison has done to the field that allowed for people to stick around longer under the coverage, it was perfect.”
“It awesome to see the fans here for 25-30 minutes wait under the bleachers,” Schreiber said. “Both teams want to win and it’s pretty cool to see how loud everybody was, every time there was an out it was loud and whether it was McCoy or Hat High fans, it was loud. The whole game was a pretty exciting atmosphere to be part of and hopefully we can still pack the park for Friday. It’ll be a different kind of event but we’ll make the most of it.”
