Crossroads Staff
There has been a change at the top and bottom of the standings in the Sask-Alta Baseball League as the league’s 2018 regular season draws to a close.
The Cabri River Rats have won the SABL regular season pennant and Cabri will now host the league’s championship showdown. There was only one game remaining on the SABL schedule in the 2018 regular season and it will have wild card implications.
In the SABL, the pennant winner gets a bye to the league’s one-day championship showdown. The second to seventh place teams face off in three wild card games to determine the teams to play for the league championship. Teams now know the championship takes place in Cabri on July 29.
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The Swift Current Yard Goats were scheduled to be on the road against the Climax Cardinals on Wednesday night, but the score was unavailable at the time of publication. If Climax won, the team would secure its spot in a wild card game. If Climax lost, the team would end up tied for seventh in the standings with the Maple Creek Mohawks.
Maple Creek owns the tie-breaker against Climax by virtue of having more head-to-head runs from their season series. Climax beat Maple Creek 9-2 on June 14 and Maple Creak beat Climax 19-1 on July 12, so Maple Creek holds the tie-breaker 21-10. A win or loss will not change Swift Current’s place in the standings.
In fact, only seventh and eighth place have yet to be determined in the standings. Prior to the final game between Swift Current and Climax, the standings were Cabri (9-4-1), Richmound Rockets (9-5), Swift Current (7-5-1), Gull Lake Greyhounds (7-7), Shaunavon Badgers (6-8), Medicine Hat Vipers (6-8), Climax (5-8) and Maple Creek (5-9).
Shaunavon and Medicine Hat both own tie-breakers against Climax by virtue of having more wins or runs scored in their head-to-head match ups, so the Cardinals have to either win or tie their final game against the Yard Goats to finish in seventh.
The final week of the SABL season had its share of twists and turns. Swift Current defeated the then first-place Rockets by a score of 10-4 on July 17. Richmound beat Cabri 8-0 on July 12, but Cabri beat Richmound 10-7 on July 16.
As for other games during the final week, Cabri blanked Medicine Hat 10-0 on July 11, Medicine Hat beat Gull Lake 1-0 on July 15 and Gull Lake beat Shaunavon 11-5 on July 17. Dates of the wild card games will be announced as soon as the season ends and match ups are set.
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