The Muenster Bantam Red Sox are Provincial A baseball champions for the second year in a row, but they earned this year’s title at home.
The Muenster Red Sox hosted the Bantam A Provincial Championship from July 20-22.
The five team round-robin affair had Nipawin, Melville, Swift Current and Kindersley participate along with the host.
Their first game of the tournament, played July 20 against the Nipawin Giants, went very well for the Red Sox.
The final score of the game, ended with the mercy rule, was 12-1.
Game two, played the morning of July 21 against the Kindersley Royals, ended the same way, called using the mercy rule when the Red Sox were up 15-5.
The Red Sox’ third game of the tournament was against the Swift Current Indians, the evening of July 21.
A heavy rainfall delayed the game in the second inning. Though it did not rain long, it rained a lot, and it took time to clean up the diamonds before the game could resume.
It finally did, and  Muenster was up 12-4 when it was called on account of darkness in the fifth inning.
Game four, their last round-robin game, was played the morning of July 22 against the Melville Millionaires.
Though the game went to extra innings, Muenster won 5-4.
They met Melville again in the first final game, and lost this time, 12-0.
However, because the Red Sox had gone undefeated in the round robin, Melville had to beat them twice to win.
In the second final, the Red Sox beat the Millionaires 7-5 to claim the Provincial title.
“It was a complete team effort with every player contributing to the victory,” said coach Troy Anderson after the tournament.
Muenster’s pitching and defence were great, he said, and the hits were timely.
“It was excellent hitting all weekend,” he noted.
After losing the first final game, his players really rallied, he said, and put it all on the line for the final game.
They had been in the same situation last year, playing Provincials in Melfort, Anderson noted. They had to win three games on Sunday to win the provincial title, which they did, over the Unity Cardinals.
“Some players had experience with that. I think that helped us, too,” Anderson said.
 ”We had a very dedicated group of boys on our team,” added coach Brent Loehr. “They bought into our program. I am especially proud of this club because it is the same group we have had since the beginning of the year. No pickups. Thirteen kids signed up for baseball in Muenster and that was the same team that we took to provincials. Everybody contributed.”