The IDL Midget Knights lived up to the name in the Valley of Champions baseball tournament in Kelowna by winning gold.
Wins have been few and far between for the defending double-A provincial champs this season simply because they've been playing teams a notch above them in calibre. They've been entering triple-A tournaments and playing men's teams in the Prince George Senior Baseball Association. The trip to Kelowna offered the Knights their first glimpse of a level-playing field.
"We finally won one," said Knights manager Randy Potskin. "We're 1-11 in the men's league so it's nice to win a few games and get some confidence."
The Knights won that opening game 11-6, scoring all 11 runs in the third inning, and then defeated Lacombe, Alta., Delta and Surrey before wrapping up the title with a 12-7 victory over the Lacombe Dodgers in the championship game Sunday. The Knights lost their fourth game 8-6 to the Surrey Blue Jays but that had no bearing on playoff positions and the Knights used that to experiment with some new pitchers.
The Knights opened up a 5-0 lead in the final before it started to unravel on them in the fifth inning. Lacombe jumped on starting pitcher Bryan Allbee and put up seven runs to lead 7-6 heading into the bottom of the inning. The damage could have been worse if Josh Rockwell hadn't stuck out his glove to take away a labelled drive on a double-play tag-up with one out, ending the inning.
In the bottom of the fifth, Myles Kazakoff put the Knights back in the driver's seat with an inside-the-park home run down the first base line, which also brought home baserunners Dryden Barkowski and Kyle Gendron. The Knights added three more in their half of the sixth. Nicholas Potskin pitched the final two innings.
The Knights were in action in the men's league Tuesday night at Citizen Field against the Shooters Pub Gladiators and will have four more PGSBA games left to tune up for provincials. Just four players -- Nicholas Potskin, Tre Potskin, Cole Waldie and Mark Mosure -- remain from last year's provincial double-A championship-winning team. The other current midget Knights players are: Lane Desjarlais, Jackson Belanger, Jayden Heer and Ryan Hanson.
n With seven house league teams this season in the the Prince George Youth Baseball Association, the United Steelworkers Local 1-424 Mosquito Knights all-star squad has made the jump form Tier 2 and is now a triple-A Tier 1 provincial challenger.
This past weekend in Kelowna, the Knights got their first taste of Tier 1 competition at the Valley Tournament of Champions. Coming off a gold-medal win at the Canada Day tournament in Kamloops, the Knights went 2-2 in Kelowna, just missing the playoff round.
Prince George dropped the opener 12-3 to Ladner, but gave the Okotoks Baseball Academy of Alberta a lot more difficulty, losing 9-8 while leaving the tying run at third base in the fifth inning. The Knights followed that up with a 9-6 win over West Kelowna and 15-0 whitewash of Rutland.
The mosquito Knights are entered in the triple-A Tier 1 provincial championship Aug. 1-5 in Cloverdale.
The other members of the team are Connor Amonson, Hayden Prive, Dawson Joly, Nolan Hull,Lucas Crossina, Colby Clarke, Holden Black and Kyle Bachand.
n The single-A bantam Knights also played in Kelowna but results were not available.
