Baseball Canada & Andrew Albers recognized by COPABE
Friday, September 14, 2012
OTTAWA-COPABE (Confederacy Pan American Baseball) has named Baseball Canada the Federation of the Year for 2011 and named National Team player Andrew Albers (North Battleford, SK) as its Senior Male Athlete of the Year for 2011.
Baseball Canada enjoyed a banner year in 2011 as the Senior National Team captured the gold medal at the Pan American Games in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico with a 2-1 victory over the United States in the championship game and took home the bronze medal at the IBAF World Cup in Panama.
In November, the Junior National Team claimed the silver medal at the COPABE 18U World Qualifier in Cartagena, Colombia.
Albers was key contributor on the mound for the Senior National Team in both starting and relief roles.
Albers started the World Cup opener against Puerto Rico and threw 5 shutout innings to pick-up the victory. He followed that up with five combined innings of shutout relief in wins over Chinese Taipei and the Netherlands where he gave up only two hits.
When Canada faced a must win situation against South Korea with a medal round spot on the line, Albers came through with another five inning shutout performance to earn the win.
At the Pan Am Games Albers continued to dazzle in relief as he threw three solid innings as Canada opened the tournament with a win against Puerto Rico.
After a loss to Cuba, Canada defeated Venezuela and host Mexico in the semi-finals which booked a date with the United States in Gold Medal game.
Manager Ernie Whitt handed Albers the ball and after surrendering a run in the bottom of the first he shutdown the US and struck out eight batters en route to earning the win in the gold medal game.
Albers is currently a member of Baseball Canada’s World Baseball Classic Qualifier team.
Baseball Canada and Sask Baseball would like to congratulate Andrew on this great honour.
Adam Morissette
Coordinator, Media/Public Relations
Baseball Canada