Cardinals fly through LDBA playoffs

   St. Thomas mercies four of five opponents on way to 15U title

  August 26, 2025

By Rob J. Ross

ST. THOMAS - For an eighth consecutive season, this group of St. Thomas Cardinals are London and District Baseball Association (LDBA) champions.

The Cardinals went 5-0 on their way to the LDBA 15U title, mercying Mitchell, 12-2, in five innings, in the final Sunday at Emslie Field.

It is the fifth tournament title for these red birds this summer.

"We have a deep pitching staff, which helped us win all four tournaments that we were in leading up to this one," Cardinals' manager Jamie Johnston said. "You can not do that without not just good pitching, but a lot of good pitching. We have a lot of arms we can rely on."

Those arms carried the Cardinals to first place during the regular season, a 22-2 record.

St. Thomas opened league playoffs dusting Mitchell, 13-3, before dousing the London Talons, 14-4 and Sarnia, 9-1. The Cardinals made short work of Lucan-Ilderton, 18-3, Sunday morning, to advance to the final.

"That (mercies) saves arms," said Johnston. "We got a complete game on Friday. We got two complete games on Saturday and a complete game today."
The pitching was so good, one of their top hurlers never threw one inning.

Linkin Kellington pitched the opening inning of the final. Drew Bate took over for the next four innings, striking out five batters and allowing just five hits and three base on balls.

Leading 2-1, the Cardinals doubled their score in the third inning, before taking command of the game with three more runs in the fourth, for a 7-1 lead.

Kellington had a pair of singles, scored twice and drove in a run. Quinn Wilson batted two-for-three, with one RBI and Ben McCoubrey had two singles.

Matthew East and Creed Green both hit two run doubles, while Evan Campbell picked up two RBIs.

St. Thomas capitalized on four Mitchell errors.

"It's a great group of kids," Johnston said. "It's an absolute pleasure to be out here with them, not just because they're good ball players and win games, but they have fun doing it. They're supportive of each other."

Team chemistry developed over the years as the majority of the players have stuck with each other since Rookie Ball.

"We've been lucky to have pretty much the same core group of kids and they've been coached well by Scott (Bate) and Jeff (Keays) and other coaches on the way up, so it makes our lives easier at the 15U age," Johnston said. "We have a really strong select program in St. Thomas, so the last two, three years, we've been able, when we've had spots, add some kids from select."

Now the Cardinals set their eyes on their Ontario Baseball Association championship, August 29-September 1, in St. Thomas.

"We have OBAs as a goal," said Johnston. "These kids won OBAs in Rookie Ball, but we haven't won one since, despite all of the success we've had. A lot of second place (including 2023) and third place finishes and a lot of heart breaking games. That's part of sports."

Through all the wins and big scores this season, the Cardinals have been setting up the road for the biggest tournament on the calendar.

"The kids know that everything we've been talking about builds towards next weekend," said Johnston. "We know we'll be seeing some good teams that we're not familiar with and we're going to be facing some adversity. We tried to focus on when we're in those close games, how do we deal with it? How do we stay positive? How do we still do the things that we know we need to do to win games?

One sided scores during the playoffs over the weekend hid a strength of the Cardinals, the flexibility to play a different type of game.

"We can hit and we can pitch, but when we need to, we can play small ball," said Johnston. "One thing we will do is out baseball teams."

Bunting runners over, sac flies, stealing bases, all part of the strategy when the offence isn't burning opponents with huge scores.

The 15U Cardinals hope to make capturing OBA crown at home a streak for St. Thomas.

Two years ago, the 8U Cardinals won at the Tarry Complex, while last season, the 16U Cardinals celebrated a provincial title at Emslie.
 

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