By: Kirk Budden

Canadian Baseball Network

Atlantic Maroon  got the leadoff man on base from a wild throw to first by Quebec starter William Sierra in the first game at T12 on Saturday, but that was the last piece of help Sierra gave them.

He then settled in and got a strikeout to end the inning and continued to deal leading his team to a 5-1 win over Atlantic Maroon on Saturday morning.

Boxscore: Quebec Blue 5 Atlantic Maroon 1

Sierra rolled on through the game as he struck out the side in the second with his pitches reaching 89 mph. Sierra didn't give up a hit in his entire outing and his only run allowed was on a fielder's choice.

The right-hander was hit-and-miss, throwing seven BBs and seven Ks in his 4.1 innings of work. After six innings both clubs were held to one run each and only Quebec had registered hits. Head coach Robert Fatal liked what he saw from his starter.

“Both starters made it hard for hitters to get something going,” Fatal said. “(Sierra) was aggressive and that’s what we want. He missed some spots but battled back and found his pitches. He was “A plus, plus” for us today.”

Quebec jumped on team Atlantic early in the first inning when Archer Brookman hit a two-out RBI double in the right field gap scoring a walk given up by team Atlantic starting pitcher Cam Ritcey. After that Ritcey found a groove of his own not allowing another run over four innings totaling three BBs and five Ks.

Dominic Tardif took over for Ritcey in the fifth inning and pitched into the seventh when the silence of the bats stopped for Quebec. Edouard Savoie hit a triple to start the late-game charge. It sparked the club to score four runs in the inning.  

Savoie ended up scoring on a balk to give Quebec the lead and it continued with Isaac Mailhot-Berard's pinch-hit RBI single and an RBI knock from Remi Patry. The inning was capped by a hard-hit single into the outfield by Marc-Antoine Lebreux, which gave him two hits and an RBI on the day. 

Tardif hit the next batter but struck out the following two to stop the bleeding for team Atlantic. The deficit proved to be too much to get back as Viktor Bergeron who took over for Sierra in the fifth shut them down, finishing the day with one walk and four Ks through 2.2 innings. Fatal was pleased with his pitcher and the comeback was no surprise to him at all.

“Bergeron was locked in, exactly what we were expecting,” Fatal said. “That’s us. We've done that many times. The guys have been off the last three weeks and they’ve been waiting to do that,”

Team Atlantic played the early game Friday and had the whole day to rest whereas team Quebec played at 7 pm and had a quick turn over to play the early game on Saturday. Head coach Robert Fatal was pleased with his team's play on the quick turn around.

“It’s tough, you don’t play all day and you have to play the first game after,” Fatal said. “ But we’re here to play baseball it doesn’t matter when we play – it could be 2 AM and we’d be ready to play. “

Quebec Blue (1-0-1) will next be in action on Saturday afternoon against Prairies Purple (0-1-1). Atlantic Maroon (1-1-0) will face Alberta Red (0-1-0) on Sunday morning.