Playing on their home diamond, the top-ranked 13U AA Lloydminster Prairie Pirates came narrowly close to winning the Baseball Alberta provincial Tier 1 championship Sunday night at Legion Ball Park.
The previously unbeaten Pirates lost 12-11 to the fourth-seeded Sylvan Lake Mariners in the championship game. The Pirates had come back from a 10-1 deficit to take an 11-10 lead into the final inning, but the Mariners rallied with two runs in the top half of the seventh.
On a cool, windy and rainy night in the Border City, the finalists battled just 24 hours after Lloydminster hammered Sylvan Lake 21-7 in five innings in their divisional round-robin matchup.
That setback in preliminary play proved to be the only loss for Sylvan Lake, as both the Mariners and Pirates finished with 4-1 records overall.
In the semifinals Sunday afternoon, Sylvan Lake nipped the Webber Wildcats 9-8, while Lloydminster topped the Okotoks Outlaws 7-3, shortly after Okotoks downed the Strathmore Reds 11-6 in a morning tiebreaker.
It was a rewarding year for the veteran-laden Pirates, whose other weekend wins were 14-8 over Camrose Cougars Royal and 15-7 over SWEMBA White Sox Black.
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