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Beavers ready for big game tonight

Jun 18, 2018 | 12:00 PM

It’s a big night in the North Saskatchewan River Baseball League.

The 8-1 Meadow Lake Sox are taking on the 5-1 North Battleford Beavers in a battle that will determine seeding for the playoffs, as the league is now at the halfway point in its schedule. Beavers Head Coach Ryan Shepard said he knows how important tonight is.

“Our playoff format is top eight, so it’s important to get a win here and there and everywhere,” Shepard said. “A team like Meadow Lake, you really want to push to get that win. You want to do the best you can and they have a few good bats and a couple good arms there that are hard to get through. We need to set the pace at the start of the game.”

The Beavers were on quite a roll until they ran into a tough opponent in the Border City Blue Jays last week, losing 8-0.

“We seem to be able to get on the bats pretty good at the start of the year with pretty good consistent pitching from our starters like Quinton Cubbon and Darvin Scheidl and Kyle Palmer,” Shepard said. “We ended up with a shorter bench in our Lloyd game against the Jays. We weren’t quite able to pull that one off, but it would be nice to pull tonight’s out and keep going on a good run.”

Meadow Lake’s offense has been the best in the NSRBL early this year, managing 87 runs over their nine games. They will match up well against the Beavers defense, which is second-ranked in the league. The Beavers have surrendered only 22 runs so far, second to only the Lloyminster Twins. Shepard said he’s excited to see what the team can do moving into the ladder portion of the schedule.

“We’ve got a good group of guys this year, so we should be able to do pretty good come playoff time,” he said.

Tonight’s game starts at 7:30 at the Ken Nelson Field in North Battleford. Elsewhere in the league St. Walburg visits the Edam Blue Sox and Macklin is taking on the Trappers.

 

brady.lang@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @BradyLangCJNB