Canceled Sun Country Flight Sidelines Community College Baseball Team From Arizona Tournament
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Instead of playing games this week, a Twin Cities baseball team finds themselves on the sidelines thanks to a canceled flight.
For the Anoka-Ramsey Community College baseball team, the Tucson Invitational is a reward for all their hard work. They play 10 games there, a fifth of their entire schedule. And since they couldn't go the last two years, this trip was going to be even more special.
"It's one of the highlights of our season, and to be in this situation now is disappointing," coach Jason Saulsbury said.
The team's Sun Country flight was supposed to leave Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport at 9:20 p.m. Sunday. But a couple hours before that, Saulsbury got an email saying the flight was canceled, though no reason was given.
"It was a random email and that was it. It was like OK, mass panic now. Get on the phone," Saulsbury said . "I was on hold at one point for one call, 2 and-a-half hours and the other one was 45 minutes."
When he eventually got ahold of someone at Sun Country, Saulsbury said the best they could offer was to split the team up into three groups and fly them out one group at a time on Wednesday into Phoenix, which is still a two hour drive from Tucson.
By then, half the tournament would be over.
"I am absolutely heart-broken. Kind of broke down in tears," Jen Kouri said.
Kouri's son, Jake, plays first base and her daughter, Megan, does social media for the team. Kouri and her husband took off work and flew to Arizona on a different airline but now they don't have a team to watch. Because Anoka-Ramsey does their own fundraising for the trip, Jake spent hundreds of dollars out of his own pocket, to make it happen. But so far, they're on the wrong end of a different kind of shutout.
"I'm just praying something comes through, somehow. Because I can't imagine sitting here for four days while Jake is at home," Kouri said.
Sun Country said a number of flights were canceled Sunday night due to weather in the southeastern part of the country.
A spokesperson for the airline says a busy Spring Break combined with staffing issues have created more of a challenge than previous years.
