Burton excited for Road to Okotoks baseball tournament

If any one of Team Manitoba’s opponents are expecting them to just come along for the ride, they are sorely mistaken.

Team Toba begins their quest today at the inaugural Road to Okotoks, a national event that features the top academies and players from across Canada for athletes 19-years-old and under.

The actual tournament will feature 16 clubs battling it out for the Morneau Cup — named in honour of Justin Morneau, the former American League MVP, Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer, and Minnesota Twins phenom — from July 14 to 19, in Okotoks, Alta. However, the qualifiers begin today in one of three host cities: Langley, B.C., Lethbridge, Alta., and Missisauga, Ont.

Cason Burton, a right-handed pitcher who is the only Brandonite representing his province, made it clear his club isn’t just vying for the experience.

“We all really talked about what our mindset should be going into the tournament and obviously as a team we feel that Manitoba always gets overlooked on national stages,” said Burton, who will be joined by Hamiota’s Nolan Drake and Tyson Hardy of Moosomin, Sask., as players coming from the Triple Crown Sports program.

“We’re always kind of the underdogs going into these tournaments or the middle of the pack teams, so I think we really want to put ourselves on the map and show the rest of Canada what we what we’re made of and what we can do.

“It’d be huge for the future of baseball in Manitoba if we go out there and perform because we got lots of young talent here that gets overlooked, so we’re going in with lots to prove.”

Burton and Manitoba will need to qualify through the Lethbridge bracket that’s hosted by the Prairie Baseball Academy.

They begin round-robin action today at 11:45 a.m. against the host Okotoks Dawgs Red at Jets Stadium and then will face a quick turnaround with another game held there at 5:15 p.m. against Vauxhall Academy. On Friday, they play one game against Sylvan Lake Gulls Prep at Lloyd Nolan Yard at 8:30 a.m. and then will close out their non-elimination matchups against the Calgary Bucks at 10:45 a.m. at Spitz Stadium.

The quarterfinals begin Saturday evening and the semifinals and final are on Sunday, with only the top three teams advancing to play at Okotoks at Seaman Stadium in July.

While Burton admitted the nerves are still running free being at a new premier national event, he should be prepared for this moment considering his appearances at the Ray Carter Cup in 2024 and Canada Games last summer.

“It’s definitely exciting, is the first thing I’d say,” said Burton. “Obviously it’s the first year for this tournament, so it’s gonna be fun getting to play for Manitoba in the first year and we also have a lot of guys on our team that were at the Games and at these big events in prior years, so we have a really experienced team in sort of a national environment. I think that’s gonna be huge because going into the games it’s a little less nerve wracking having those other experiences.

“It’s totally normal to be nervous in anything, especially in these big stages, but personally I think the tournaments and national events that I’ve been to in the past are huge. With me already being in some high pressure situations, I think it’s really gonna help me feel calm on the mound and help me do what I do best.”

For the five-foot-11, 210-pound power pitcher, that means throwing slightly more than 90 miles per hour. He throws with incredible force consistently and that’s why he was named to the team, according to Dustin Asham, the director of baseball operations at Triple Crown Sports and director of high performance for Brandon Minor Baseball who’s also serving as a coach at the Road to Okotoks.

“He’s a right-handed pitcher throwing 90 miles an hour now, which not very many guys in Manitoba, if any, are throwing as hard as him,” Asham said. “He, along with Tyson and Nolan, are great representatives of Triple Crown Sports and are kind of the biggest fish in a medium-sized pond in the Manitoba and Saskatchewan type areas, so to be able to showcase and stack their talent up against that top talent in Canada, it’ll kind of show them what they need to get to or if they’re already there.”

Asham, a former member of Team Manitoba who also played professionally in Australia and Sioux City in the American Association, found out he’d have an opportunity to be a part of Okotoks with a few players from the program last fall, when Baseball Manitoa executive director Jason Miller pitched the idea to him. Asham said he immediately jumped at the chance, admitting these types of opportunities weren’t necessarily available back in his playing days.

“I was obviously pretty excited to be asked to be part of the coaching staff because I’ve been around baseball for a long time, I’ve had my opportunities of playing and I’m kind of in my coaching days now and I can say things like this weren’t available to me when I was playing,” he said. “I really am excited to be able to go and kind of be with those guys and experience it as a coach myself because it’s not just the players playing against the top players in the country, it’s also the coaches coaching against the top coaches in the country.”

He finds himself in great company along with fellow coaches Cody Bensen, head coach of Team Manitoba, Ben Onyshko, a former Team Canada member and minor league pitcher in the Seattle Mariners organization, and Amos Ramon, a Winnipeg Goldeyes alum.

Asham said while he’s not exactly sure what to expect with a new event such as this one, his advice to his players is for them to stick to what they know best.

“They’re high performance players, they know, and they were invited for a reason, so we expect them to perform and enjoy themselves and just play the way they did to get themselves invited to an event like this.”

» mdelucataronno@brandonsun.com