Senior AA ball ready for nice weather

Year 1 of the biggest story in senior AA baseball in Manitoba proved to be a success.

With the collapse of the Andrew Agencies Senior AA Baseball League in Brandon in early 2025, the Brandon Young Guns and Cardinals both migrated to the South West league.

South West president Aaron Tycoles said it worked out pretty well.

“There were a few little growing pains but nothing crazy,” Tycoles said. “I think they fit into the league well, they’re well-organized and well run so we didn’t really have any major issues with them last year.

“Any time you’re growing, it’s a good thing. If you look around, there are lots of young kids playing ball but we haven’t seen that carry forward to senior.

“If you look at the overall age of our league even going into last year, I thought we might start losing teams before we were gaining, so any time we’re gaining and maintaining is a good thing.”

All four leagues in Manitoba have either started play or begin this week.

The two senior championships are both in and around Winnipeg, with the senior A playdowns in Springfield July 17-19 and the senior AAs in west Winnipeg Aug. 7-9.

The western Canadian championships are in Saskatoon from Aug. 14 to 16, and nationals are in Chatham, N.B., from Aug. 20 to 23.

BORDER

A league stalwart is gone with the Pilot Mound Pilots stepping away as the Border Baseball League drops down to eight teams.

President Darren Russell is hopeful the Pilots will navigate their way back.

“They had a lot of Pilot Mound guys, don’t get me wrong, but they had a lot of guys from outside their area and they were drawing from some other communities and it kind of dried up on them,” he said. “They have a strong ball system but they have a gap right now. I’m fully confident we’ll see Pilot Mound back in the not-too-distant future. I think they’ll be back sooner rather than later.”

The Killarney Lakers may also be back one day. They have been inactive since 2019, but with their robust minor baseball system, Russell is optimistic.

“I’m hopeful for them as well,” Russell said. “We just need somebody who wants to be in charge of it in Killarney, someone who is going to have kids coming into the system who want to play senior ball and want to play at home. You need a dad or a what-have-you to take it and run with it and get the team going. “I’m hopeful just because of the size of the centre. It’s a big town.”

There has been some good news. The Holland A’s joined the league in 2025, and Russell is excited to watch them move forward.

“Last year was a growing season for them,” Russell said. “They took their losses but they played a lot of really competitive games and I think we’re going to see better things out of Holland this season for sure. They return much of the same lineup and are another year older, another year wiser.

“They were a young team last year. That year under their belt will serve them well.”

Last season, in the West Division, the Cartwright Twins (12-2-0) won another pennant, followed by the Baldur Regals (9-5-0), Pilot Mound Pilots (7-7-0), Clearwater (4-10-0) and Holland (2-12-0). In the East Division, the Winkler Whips were tops at 9-5-0, followed by the Morden Mud Hens (7-6-1), Altona Bisons (6-6-2) and Carman Cardinals (5-8-1).

In the West Division’s play-in game, Clearwater beat Holland to advance.

In the best-of-five first round of the playoffs, it was Pilot Mound over Baldur 3-0, and Cartwright 3-0 over Clearwater. Cartwright then swept Pilot Mound in the division final.

On the other side, Morden swept Altona and Winkler took out Carman in five. In the division final, Morden prevailed 3-1.

In the final, Morden won the first two games and took the series in four over Cartwright.

The Twins later had something of their own to celebrate when they won the western Canadian championship, although they also lost in the AA final. Meanwhile, Baldur captured the senior A provincial title .

“We’ve got a strong group returning,” Russell said. “Our league is as strong as it’s ever been. I really believe that.”

In what’s now an eight-team league, three different squads have won the title in the last three years and four in the last five, with Morden (2025), Cartwright (2024 and 2022), Winkler (2023) and Pilot Mound (2021) all claiming championships.

Russell notes the four teams on the eastern side of the league are all in larger communities than their western rivals, but in the last three years, the interlocking divisional games have been one game from .500.

Russell thinks he knows why.

“We’ve got a pretty strong import rule, which forces teams to play local players and develop their youth,” Russell said. “I think that’s a real feather in our cap, that we can’t just airlift players in from here, there and everywhere to prop up our rosters. You have to develop your youth and support your local minor ball systems.”

The rules are so tight that at the league meetings, each team presents their roster, which is broken into returnees and new players. Each newcomer is individually voted on by the other teams, with a 70 per cent margin needed for a player to be allowed to suit up.

The main exception is when a team has to pick up players just to sustain a workable roster, but moves for competitive reasons are banned.

“If they are normal guys who are coming to play for you, it’s pretty simple that they get approved,” Russell said. He said it might hurt the league in some ways, but it’s a big-picture win because it provides a pathway for local youngsters to their senior team.

Border’s regular season began on Tuesday and is set to wrap up on July 3.

The two league finalists will attend the AA provincials. The format to pick a team to attend the A provincials is still up in the air.

“It’s like every year,” Russell said. “They’re very excited to get going and get the season under way.”

One other small setback is the all-star game, which has been mothballed after running in 2023 and 2024.

“We really struggled with it trying to get any kind of commitment from players to attend,” Russell said. “It seems to have lost its lustre. I don’t know why but nobody seems to want to be involved in an all-star game anymore so we just quit trying.”

SANTA CLARA

Santa Clara league co-president Cole Krutkewich will be joined by Carter Schettler of Plumas atop the league after former co-president Tom Yandeau stepped back.

But it’s another former president who continues to play a major role in running the league, Warren Birch of Carberry.

“It’s been good,” said Krutkewich, who stepped into the role in 2024 when Birch resigned. “It’s a really good group of guys. Every team at our league meetings sends one or two guys, and sometimes they’ll bring a young guy, because let’s face it, not everyone sticks around forever. It’s nice to have Birch. This year he kind of ran the meeting a little bit so he’s still showing us the ways. We’re so thankful to have him around because it’s a lot to manage.”

The regular season, which will see each team play 14 games, began last Wednesday and is set to wrap up on July 3. The playoff format will remain the same, with the top two teams getting a bye and the bottom four playing each other. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be best-of-threes, with the final settled in five games.

“Everyone is really excited,” Krutkewich said. “We played our first game on Wednesday. We had Portage, the reigning champs, in town, and it was just a beautiful night. It was so nice to be back on the diamonds.”

Last year, the Portage Padres (11-3-1) won the regular season pennant, followed by Plumas Pirates (10-4-1), Carberry Royals (6-7-2), Neepawa Cubs (6-7-2), Minnedosa Mavericks (4-8-3) and Austin A’s (3-11-1).

In the first round of the playoffs, Carberry topped Minnedosa 2-1 and Neepawa swept Austin in the opening round. The two teams with byes then advanced in sweeps, with Portage beating Carberry and Plumas victorious over Neepawa.

In the best-of-five final, Portage beat Plumas 3-1 with a tie.

Since Minnedosa’s unprecedented run of 10 championships in a row ended in 2015, Portage has captured six titles and six pennants.

One nice thing for the league is that Austin’s new field will be ready after they played entirely on the road in 2025. The league had been planning for the A’s to play away games for the first half of the season and the rest at home, but that won’t be necessary after all.

“When all is said and done, they should have two diamonds that can host senior ball, which is very nice,” Krutkewich said. “If they ever want to host a provincial (championship), that’s what you need.”

The Mavericks returned to the league in 2023 after a three-year absence. The Ebb and Flow Lakers were in the league until 2022 but were kicked out mid-season and won’t be back.

Krutkewich said the league’s stability since Minnedosa came back has been nice, with all six teams back for the fourth year in a row.

“We really get to know each other, which is a cool thing,” Krutkewich said. “When some of us go to provincials, we pick up from other teams. I really got to know lots of players from other teams and it’s kind of neat because you build relationships with them.”

The only team that has inquired about possibly joining the SCBL in recent years was the Brandon Cubs after the local league fell apart last spring, but it ultimately didn’t go anywhere.

“We’re always open to expanding for sure, but it just didn’t work out,” Krutkewich said.

Mavericks mainstay Andrew Richards has taken over the website, and has tracked some of the player movement.

Among the notable retirements in the league are John and Mitch Hutton from Minnedosa, Justin Walker of Plumas, and at least temporarily, former four-time MVP Zac Yandeau of Plumas.

On the other side of the ledger, Zaine McConnell and Phil Wells will slide back into Carberry’s lineup and Dayton Heino returns to Minnedosa.

“Everyone has their time, I guess,” Krutkewich said. “We lost a few this year. (John Hutton) has been around the league for years and he was dominant. In 2017, the Cubs picked him up for provincials and he wasn’t young then and threw a full game for us. “He’s just a phenomenal guy, and when you lose people like that, for sure it hurts, but we have some young kids coming up too who are just great assets. It’s just a revolving thing.”

SOUTH WEST

Everyone is returning in the 11-team league: Now it’s just a matter of getting a little help from Mother Nature.

“I think everybody is excited, the weather just hasn’t been conducive to anything,” Tycoles said. “The crop is not in the ground yet for a lot of guys, so we’re going to see some players not be around when the schedule starts, and obviously the first two games got cancelled because of the wind, which is the first time I think I’ve ever seen that happen.

“Everyone is excited to get going, but we need the weather to co-operate a little bit.”

The regular season was scheduled to begin last Thursday but both games were postponed, and it is set to wrap up on July 5.

The five-team South Division’s clubs play 14 games and the six-team North Division squads take to the diamond 15 times in the regular season.

This season, the top four teams in each division will once again make the playoffs, with best-of-three series in the first round and best-of-fives in the divisional and league finals. This year, if the top two teams are tied for first with the same amount of losses, then the regular season matchups between them will determine who gets the top spot.

Boissevain earned the right to go to western Canadians, so the league is planning to have the season wrapped up in early August.

The addition of the two Brandon teams allowed the South West to go back to its previous North and South Division format.

Last season in the North Division, it was the Oak River Dodgers (13-2), Brandon Young Guns (9-6), Rivers Comets (8-7), Hamiota Red Sox (7-8), Virden Oilers (6-9) and Reston Rockets (6-9). In the South Division, it was the Boissevain Centennials (12-2), Brandon Cardinals (8-6), Deloraine Royals (5-9), Wawanesa Brewers (5-9) and Souris (1-13).

In the best-of-three opening round, Rivers swept the Young Guns and Oak River got past Hamiota in three, and Boissevain swept Wawanesa and the Cardinals beat Deloraine in three.

In the best-of-five division finals, Oak River topped Rivers in four and Boissevain swept the Cardinals.

In the final, after Boissevain gave Oak River a 24-3 beating in Game 1, the Dodgers responded with a 3-2 victory in Game 2 to square the series. But Boissevain then took the next two games to win the league title for the fourth year in a row.

In fact, nobody but Boissevain or Oak River has won the championship since Virden did it way back in 2016. (No champion was crowned in 2021 due to COVID.)

“You’ve seen their young core, even back to when I was still playing a few years ago, and they didn’t hit the ball real well,” Tycoles said. “They always pitched well and would win low-scoring games, but now you’ve seen those guys grow up. You look at the Clyne twins (Tanner and Austin) and guys like that, as they’ve gotten older, they’re pretty good hitters and now they can win games 15-14 if they have to or 2-1, depending on who they’re facing.

“They pitch well, they play good defence and they hit the ball pretty well. They are the kings until someone else can come in and knock them off.”

The top contender may be Oak River, who will welcome pitcher Anthony Friesen into their lineup after the Pilot Mound Pilots folded in the Border Baseball League.

At senior AA provincials, the Centennials and Young Guns both reached the semifinals, with Boissevain beating the Elmwood Giants and Brandon falling 1-0 to the Cartwright Twins. In the final, Boissevain won an 8-7 shootout.

“There is definitely a bragging-rights feel to it,” Tycoles said. “I think it’s been a minute since we had a provincial champion so it was nice to that happen and nice to see our teams do well.”

Last season, the Souris Cardinals returned after four years away, while the Elkhorn Expos took a leave of absence that has now extended to a second season. The Hartney Hoppers have been inactive since 2021.

“It’s been pretty quiet,” Tycoles said. “Elkhorn will be in year two of their leave of absence, Hartney is now officially inactive and would have to re-apply if they ever got to the point they thought they could have a team. We’ve not heard from anybody else.”

WINNIPEG

All nine clubs return this year.

Last season, the West Winnipeg A’s (17-3) won the pennant, followed by the Elmwood Giants (14-6), Carillon Sultans (13-6), Stonewall Blue Jays (9-11), South Winnipeg Longhorns (13-8), St. Boniface Brewers (11-11), North Winnipeg Pirates (10-12), Springfield Sr Braves (9-12) and Pembina Phillies (0-21).

In the playoffs, the A’s won their third championship in a row.

The regular season began on May 12 and is scheduled to end on Aug. 9.

pbergson@brandonsun.com