Zac Yandeau lost his chance to play baseball in his Grade 12 year at the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball and now is trying to figure out what to do this fall.
The 18-year-old right-handed pitcher threw only three innings last fall before going for surgery on his right shoulder. Cartilage had built up on his shoulder and needed to be removed to give the Plumas native a full range of motion.
The surgery, which took place in February, ended his playing season, which was hard for Yandeau to take.
“It was a little tough,” he said. “I grinded through it though. I took ground balls and went to hit to do little things around it. … (My teammates) were pretty good about it. They helped me out quite a bit, so it wasn’t too bad.”
Yandeau is still recovering from his surgery. He’s back in Plumas for the summer and feels he’s still a couple weeks away from taking the mound again.
As soon as he gets back to normal, Yandeau hopes to get back to the diamond. He’s planning on playing with the Plumas Pirates in the Santa Clara Baseball League and joining a midget team as well for the summer.
He’s also trying to figure out his future. Yandeau would like to eventually play college baseball somewhere and he’s waiting to see what route he will have to take to get there.
The 6-foot-3, 172-pound pitcher — who played for Manitoba’s youth team at the Baseball Canada Cup after helping lead Gladstone’s William Morton to the provincial high school baseball title with an MVP performance last year — would like to return to Vauxhall, Alta., for another season and take Grade 13 classes. If that doesn’t work out, Yandeau may go to B.C. to play with a college that has contacted him.
However, Yandeau thinks returning to Vauxhall will give him the best chance at reaching his goals.
“First plan is to go back to Vauxhall for another year, but we’re still waiting to hear about that,” he said. “You’d just be healthy and scouts would see you and give you a better chance to go somewhere (if I go back).”
» cjaster@brandonsun.com
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition June 23, 2012
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