Bisons 9 A's 4

The defending Manitoba Junior Baseball League champion Altona Bisons tallied eight times in the bottom of the fifth inning to take game one of their best-of-three preliminary round series 9-4 over the St. James A's. 

"We really busted it open there. Just all of the practice coming through. Hitting ground balls and making plays," said Bisons 2nd basemen Matt Klassen. 

The A's brought home the games first run, in the second inning, which the Bisons would get back in their half of the second. St. James scored three unanswered runs, one in the third and two more in the top of the fifth. The rust seemed to break off in chunks for Altona in their half of the 5th and sent 12 batters to the dish in the eight run inning. Nate Smith tossed a complete game four hitter for Altona, while striking out eight A's and walking four. Game two of this series goes in Winnipeg Thursday night with first pitch at 7:00p.m.

Orioles 12 Chiefs 11 (8 innings)

It took extra innings but the Pembina Valley Orioles squeaked out a 12-11 win over the Winnipeg South Chiefs Wednesday night to go up 1-0 in their best-of-three preliminary series. 

The visiting Pembina Valley did their best to take the home crowd out of the game early and scored three runs in the first inning, but Winnipeg South replied with three of their own in the bottom of the inning to bring them back even. The Orioles scored their fourth run of the game in the third when Branden Hatley came across the plate. The Chiefs once again knotted the game up. The Orioles continued to hit the ball and had a bat around fourth inning that resulted in four more runs and it was 8-4 Pembina Valley after four complete. In Orioles half of the fifth they put the pressure on the home town Chiefs and increased their lead by three more, but gave up three in the sixth and four in the seventh. Off to extras the two teams went. Ty Enns' bloop single in the top of the eighth inning brought home Tim Dunn and was the game winning run. Hatley got the start on the mound and tossed five innings giving up four runs, none of them earned. Tanner Bergman came in and tossed an inning and two thirds of relief and gave up three hits, walked one and struck out one, while Enns pitched the final one and a third and allowed four runs on three hits and striking out four. Game two of this series goes in Winnipeg Thursday night with first pitch at 7:00p.m.