The Saint John Alpines will have to try again next year to clinch the New Brunswick Senior Baseball League title.
Saint John lost its semifinal series against Fredericton four games to two earlier this week.
Kevin Ferguson, the head coach of the Alpines, said they are disappointed, but Fredericton deserved the win.
“I don’t think we played as well as we could have, we just didn’t hit,” said Ferguson. “I’ve gotta give credit to their pitching for doing what they did to us. As I say, it was disappointing, but we just move on from here.”
Ferguson said baseball is a game of streaks and whoever gets hot at the right time usually has the most success.
“We were hot early in the season and we built up a very good record, we went 13-3 in the first half, but we were 8-8 in the second half.”
Ferguson said he thinks a three-week break between the regular season and the playoffs also hurt them a bit but added it is no excuse for their performance.
Despite the playoff loss, Ferguson said he thinks the team had an excellent season overall.
“We had great commitment from our players, we pitched very well, during the season we were fielding well, we struggled with the bat most of the year … that’s something that we know we’ll have to work on for next season,” he said.
Ferguson said they will have four junior players coming into the senior ranks next season, which will be a bolster for the team.
He said another thing the team will need to consider is what they are going to do for import players.
“We’ll have to make a decision as to whether we want to go with two, two-way players — what I mean by that is pitcher/hitters — or do we want to go with an extremely strong pitcher and a top-notch hitter.”
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