Vikings season ends as rain washes out Tier 1 baseball championship tournament

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Vauxhall Advance

By Garrett Simmons
Vauxhall Advance

The season came to a rain-soaked finish last weekend for the Vauxhall Vikings high school baseball team.

Moisture wiped out the Southern Alberta High School Baseball League Tier 1 championship tournament. Vauxhall was set to host the tournament but in the end, the home team was only able to get in one game.

That one game did turn out to be a big victory, as the Vikings downed the Brooks Buffalos by a score of 7-3.

The game was one of the best high school games I have seen in years through the first five innings,” said Vikings coach Rob Virginillo.

“Both teams played good defence and had great starting pitching.”

The score was 1-0 in favour of the Vikings, thanks in large part to the starting pitching of Randon Lauwen.

“He was our top pitcher all season and you could even say he was the best arm in the entire league, who pitched well in every start he made,” said Virginillo, who added his starter was dominating through five. “In the sixth, he ran into some trouble and gave up two runs, but pitched out of a tough bases-loaded situation that could have led to more runs.”

The Vikings answered in the bottom of the sixth and scored seven runs, which all started with a Lauwen double and some timely hits by Mark Vulcano.

“He was our leadoff man and had one of the team’s highest batting averages along with having a two-run walk-off home run in Okotoks to help secure a win there,” said Virginillo.

A Riley Jensen single cashed in Lauwen and the rally was on.

A fielder’s choice tied the game at two, before a Dax Van Hal triple made the score 5-2. Van Hal and Vulcano later crossed the plate to make it 7-2.

Lauwen threw six innings to pick up the win, as the starter allowed two earned runs on 11 strikeouts, three walks and four hits.

Van Hal came in relief and gave up one run on one strikeout, two walks and one hit in his one inning of work.

With the win, Vauxhall was ready to play the winner of McCoy and Holy Trinity of Okotoks, a game the two teams tried to play on Friday morning. That game got into the fourth inning, before rain put an end to that contest.

Unfortunately, the weather proved to be the winner of the weekend, as a huge rainstorm hit Vauxhall Friday night, which left Jets Stadium in unplayable shape. The tournament was cancelled on Saturday morning.

“I want to thank all the community supporters of the tournament this year and over the last 23 years that I have coached and hosted 10 league championships,” said Virginillo. “This was the first time we could not finish the tournament, no matter how hard the players worked on Friday to help the diamond dry.”

And with that, the season came to an unceremonious conclusion.

“The 2025 Vikings season was a season of what-ifs,” said the coach.

“The team had a 4-4 league record and 7-5 overall, but could have easily been 7-1 in league with three losses coming because of one late inning breakdown in each of those games that led to the team giving up the lead they had. Poor defence was the issue in every loss.”

Now, the program turns the page to 2026.

“Good luck to all the players who will continue to play this summer with the Spurs and Junior Spurs,” said Virginillo. “For the three graduating players, this is not the way the season was supposed to end. Good luck in your future endeavours. For all the returning players, we have next year to try and get another banner.”

The 2025 team was led offensively by Vulcano, who paced the team with 10 hits on the season and chipped in with a team-leading 12 RBI.

Lauwen and Sidney Pederson both had seven hits each.

On the mound, Lauwen led the way with 11 and two thirds innings pitched, as the Grade 11 hurler struck out 23 batters.