Cougars repeat as APBL champions

By Lethbridge Herald on June 5, 2025.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward The Catholic Central Cougars celebrate after winning the Alberta Premier Baseball League championship over the Mosignor McCoy Colts on Thursday night at Lloyd Nolan Yard.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Catholic Central Cougars varsity baseball team dug in and found a way to comeback to defeat Medicine Hat’s  Monsignor McCoy Colts 14-7 and repeat as Alberta Premier Baseball League champions on Thursday night at Lloyd Nolan Yard.

“ We’re blessed to be back in this spot and … stuck through a really hard game with a very good team that got on us early,” said Anthony Vercillo, Cougars head coach.

“We just kept playing our brand of baseball and came back and fortunate to get the win.”

The Cougars were down 6-5 to the Colts by the end of the third inning and outscored the Colts 9-1 through next three innings to get the victory and didn’t allow McCoy anything  in the seventh inning to close the game out

“It was tricky,” said Vercillo, on coming back.

“We just couldn’t get hits but we were putting  guys on. We knew we wanted to be patient at the plate and stretch innings and make the pitcher work at every at bat.”

The Cougars started make hard contact on the ball to open the game up in their favour and had was strong on the defensive side.

“We had one of our finer defensive performances  tonight to go with some really gutsy pitching,” said Vercillo.

Catholic Central finished a combined 10-1 between regular season and playoffs.

“Just can’t say enough about this group of young men and this coaching staff,” said Vercillo.

“I just can’t thank them enough for all (of their contributions and all (of) their commitment.”

Catholic Central got 14 runs on 10 hits and surrendered one error.

The Colts got seven runs on 17 hits and had six errors.