The Hamilton Minor Mosquito Cardinals gutted their way through 7 games in crazy heat over the Lablour Day weekend to capture the Silver medals at the Provincial AA Championship Tournament this weekend.

The Cardinals opened the tournament on Friday afternoon with a win over Mississauga Southwest. The Cardinals played again early on Saturday morning and lost a tough one to London. The boys now faced the threat of elimination every game with the double knock format at the tournament. They responded with with an incredible hitting display over the the next three games, beating Whitby handily and avenging their earlier morning loss to London with a 16-5 drubbing. The victory put them through to the final four on Sunday.

Sunday morning they defeated Cambridge moving on along with Barrie into the Finals. Barrie, who had the good fortune of playing one less game in the tournament, had the luxury of having to lose twice. The Cardinals beat Barrie handily in the first game, setting up a rematch with the same Red Sox just an hour later. Ultimately, 7 long games over 3 gruelling hot days caught up with the Cardinals, but despite this they still managed to rally for 6 runs in the 7th, ultimately losing 12-10.

The entire team played well and there was some impressive stat lines when all was said and done;
Evan Arnold .652 with 5 RBI and 2 SB, Alex Brdarevic .609 with 10 RBI and 2 SB, Markus Palermo hit .643 with 6 BB, 3 RBI and 6 SB, Hudson Poole hit .450 with 9 RBI, Joey Geric .625 with 9 RBIs and James Winter .529 with 5 RBI. Winter along with Tristan Delaplante cleared the fences with the Cards first two homers of the season. Will Thompson had his strongest showing of the season hitting .563 and Judah Bailey, after dealing with an injury all season contributed as well hitting .313.

Bryce Sinclair pitched fantastic games on Friday and Sunday and played solid defense while Keith Jordan was a defensive stalwart playing shortstop and catcher all week. Aidan Jordan was excellent in centre field as well.