The Slave Lake Heat added three more notches to its collective belt on the weekend, with three wins, two in extra innings.
Coach Hugh McEvoy says the team first faced the Calgary Dinos in a double-header Saturday, leading off those matches with a closely fought 2-1 squeaker. Brad Sinclair pitched the entire game that was tied at one into the bottom of the ninth when Jeff Lindmark stole home with bases loaded.
The Heat headed back to the field to face the same team hours later, and the second time needed just seven innings to beat the Calgary team 5-4. The victory, however, didn’t arrive until the bottom of the seventh inning, added McEvoy, and came off the bat of Brent Blachford – who also pitched the entire game.
Mother Nature tried her best to dismantle the Heat’s plans for another double-header Sunday, this time against the Parkland team from Spruce Grove- Stony Plain, but only half succeeded.
“We had something to prove,” says McEvoy, in that the team earlier handed Heat one of its worst whippings of the year – a 15-2 loss.
The Heat got off to respectable start with Scott Sinclair on the mound, but when he began slipping his cousin Blair Sinclair stepped in for a couple of innings. When even Blair couldn’t stop the opposition, McEvoy says he was forced to send JP Mailhot to the mound.
“A highlight of that game came when Brent Blachford hit a bases-loaded double,” he adds, pushing the score to 9-5 – for the Heat.
The competition struck back, however, pushing the score to 9-9 forcing an extra, eighth inning. As tension levels soared, Mailhot “managed to keep them from hitting,” says the coach.
And it was the final pitcher who delivered on the scoreboard, he added.
“With Jeff (Lindmark) on second, JP (Mailhot) hit a single to drive in the winning run.”
Final score in that match was 10-9, capping off a winning weekend for the Heat.
The heavens opened about that time, giving Mother Nature the victory in the fnal game.
The wins left the team with nine wins and five losses for the season, something their coach never expected.
“When the season began I thought it’d be great to go 500,” says McEvoy, “but we finished nine and five – with four of our players chosen by a university where they can play baseball.
That, says their coach, is just icing on the cake.
The Heat travels to St. Albert for league championships this weekend and later to provincials in Fort Saskatchewan.

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