Brandon set for 18U baseball provincials

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This article was published 14/07/2022 (1289 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon Minor Baseball is entering uncharted waters today as the 18-and-under AA provincial championship begins at Andrews and Sumner fields.

For the first time, no AAA players have been included on Brandon’s AA representatives at provincials in the 13U, 15U and 18U levels, allowing more players to participate in the Manitoba events.

Glen Simard, who also serves as Brandon Minor Baseball vice-president, will guide the Brandon Knights this weekend as head coach, along with assistants Bryce Neufeld and Greg Sylvestre. He is setting expectations at an attainable level.

“We at least want to get two wins in our pool, which I think is doable,” Simard said. “Once you get two wins at provincials, you’re within a sniff of the playoffs, so that’s our goal. It will be interesting to see where we’re at after the first day.”

Outfielder Carson Burr may be hoping for a bit more, but he’s also just looking forward to the event after two years of no provincials due to the pandemic.

“We’re a pretty confident group,” Burr said. “We’ve all played together and seen each other play throughout this season and seasons prior so I think we all have deeply high expectations. We want to do our best and take a shot at it. It will be nice if we come out with the win but also, it’s just fun to play some baseball on the weekend.”

Brandon, which is in Pool 2, plays Pembina Hills today at 8:45 and Parkland at 1:45 p.m., both at Sumner Field. On Saturday, they meet the Elmwood Giants at 11:15 a.m., and Boissevain at 4:15. Pool 1 has the Carillon Sultans, Tuxedo Lightning, Macdonald Yankees, Gladstone and South Central.

Games begin at 8:30 a.m., with five matchups set for each day on Andrews Field and Sumner Field. The top two teams in each pool advance.

Any potential tiebreakers are set for Sunday morning at 10, with the semifinals set for noon and the final at 4.

Kaelan Huibers, 17, said his club has a number of keys to being successful. “We definitely have to go error-free and have good pitching,” Huibers said. “If we do that, I think we’ll be really successful. We have a good lineup up and down so we should be good.”

Brandon can probably consider this season a success in the U18 division without a pitch being thrown at provincials.

This season, 47 players registered, the highest number in years.

“Every year, it’s kind of a crapshoot as to how many kids will sign up for 18U,” Simard said. “We had so many kids sign up that it was ‘OK, we have a really good problem with all these players but what are we going to do?’”

Eleven players joined the AAA Marlins, removing them from the equation. The other 36 players formed three house league teams — the Pirates, A’s and Brewers — which participated in a six-game season plus playoffs.

Interested house league players could also play on either the Giants or Knights in the Midwest League against Miniota, Roblin, Minnedosa and Neepawa in a 10-game exhibition season. If the Giants or Knights were short, AAA players filled in. When it came to provincials, Baseball Manitoba gave Brandon permission to form a single team, so all 36 players were told about the opportunity. In the end, 18 were interested so the Knights completely filled their available roster.

As a result, 10 players will suit up throughout the event, with four players participating just on Friday and four on Saturday.

“We have 10 starters and we have these four bench players that we’re going to get into each game,” Simard said. “For us, we’re thinking we have a really good problem when all these kids want to play ball. We want to keep them interested.”

(The 13U and 15U AA Brandon representatives were handled differently. They were chosen at tryouts in May and will be part of the prospects showcase in Brandon from July 22-24.)

If Brandon’s 18U squad has a disadvantage, it’s the fact the squad never actually played or practised together before today due to their house league and Midwest commitments.

Braden Clarke, 18, said it shouldn’t be a problem.

“We played together growing up,” Clarke said. “I have confidence that we can pull it together, we have a pretty good team for this so I’m pretty confident we can get it done.”

Burr agreed.

“It will be a little bit of getting used to it and first-game jitters but we should be fine,” Burr said. “We’re used to adapting with our travel teams. With our travel teams, it was all over the place. People couldn’t come, people were getting sick. “We’re used to getting a mixed group of people together and trying to figure out who plays where and who is going to play today. We’ll have to come together as a group.”

While the U18 AA squad certainly won’t have the pitching depth the AAA squad does, it will have some weapons. Ten of its players were part of either the Vincent Massey or Neelin teams that competed in the Prairie West High School Baseball League.

Everything starts on the mound, with Brandon’s stable of seven or eight reliable throwers led by Kieran Madill and Bo Bootsman.

“It might be a bit of a concern,” Simard said of his pitching staff. “We have solid, mid-range strike throwers. Our big thing is not to walk batters. Baseball being baseball, batters will get themselves out. It’s a hard game. If you change speeds and locate in the zone, it’s going to be hard for teams to bat 1.000.”

Defensively, Brandon features elite speed in centrefield with Simard’s track star son, Andrew, who along with Ryden Lemoine and Burr forms a terrific outfield. “I think our defence is probably pretty solid,” said Simard, who coached both a house league squad and one of the teams in the Midwest League and knows the players well. “That will be a strength of ours. We won’t error ourselves out of games. If people beat us, it’s going to be through their hitting and hitting open spots.”

Clarke added that defence will be critical.

“I feel like defence really has to be at the top,” Clarke said. “The hits will come but one little error will really make the difference in a game. We have to stay sharp on the field and hopefully, that will carry us to victory.”

At the plate, Brandon has an aggressive group of hitters, in part because some of the players got into nearly 20 games this season.

“In tournament ball, especially against teams that are going to be better than us, we have to make sure we don’t allow their top guys just to go in,” Simard said. “We want to make them work.”

Outfielder Lucas Burgoyne will play on Friday. He’s confident the team has enough solid players to do well.

“I think there is a lot of talent and a lot of good guys so we should be able to go for a bit of a run,” Burgoyne said. Still, a lot of things have to go right, with intangibles playing an important role.

Huibers likes that his teammates battle and work hard, so he is setting his expectations high, in part because the event is in Brandon.

“It’s pretty awesome, especially at our home diamond,” Huibers said. “Hopefully we have a good weekend.”

• • •

It’s a busy weekend of provincials for Baseball Manitoba, which also has its U15 AA event in Hamiota, its 11U AA in Winnipeg and 13 AA in Morden. Senior ball players also kick off their provincials with the all-star event in Morden.

There are just four teams competing at the latter event, with all-star teams from the Brandon, Southwest and Border leagues, and Elmwood representing Winnipeg.

Each team plays the other three in the round-robin, with first versus fourth and second versus third in the semifinals.

The final is Sunday at 1 p.m.

Brandon is represented by Garrett Popplestone, Jordan Robertson, Jason Rae, Dylan Haney, Bradley Schoonbeart, Justin Funk, Sean Dryden, Andrew Janz, Brandon Lockerby, Adam Hartman, Jeff Wiebe, Brody Pinkerton, Brady Nault, Travis Campbell, Joel Krentz, Shayne MacGranachan, Drew Allen, Jared Bridges, Jordan Old and Buddy Mayert, with player-coach Chris Kennedy and manager Chris Campbell.

 

 

18U SCHEDULE

FRIDAY

Carillon vs. Tuxedo, 8:30 a.m., Andrews

Brandon vs. Pembina Hills, 8:45 a.m., Sumner

Gladstone vs. Macdonald, 11 a.m., Andrews

Boissevain vs. Elmwood, 11:15 a.m., Sumner

South Central vs. Carillon, 1:30 p.m., Andrews

Parkland vs. Brandon, 1:45 p.m., Sumner

Tuxedo vs. Gladstone, 4 p.m., Andrews

Pembina Hills vs. Boissevain, 4:15 p.m., Sumner

Opening ceremonies, 6 p.m.

Macdonald vs. South Central, 6:30 p.m., Andrews

Elmwood vs. Parkland, 6:45 p.m., Sumner

SATURDAY

Gladstone vs. South Central, 8:30 a.m., Sumner

Boissevain vs. Parkland, 8:45 a.m., Andrews

Macdonald vs. Carillon, 11 a.m., Sumner

Elmwood vs. Brandon, 11:15 a.m., Andrew

South Central vs. Tuxedo, 1:30 p.m., Sumner

Parkland vs. Pembina Hills, 1:45 p.m., Andrews

Carillon vs. Gladstone, 4 p.m., Sumner

Brandon vs. Boissevain, 4:15 p.m., Andrews

Tuxedo vs. Macdonald, 6:30 p.m., Sumner

Pembina Hills vs. Elmwood, 6:45 p.m., Andrews

SUNDAY

Tie-breakers if necessary, 10 a.m.

2nd Pool 2 vs. 1st Pool 1, noon, Andrews

2nd Pool 1 vs. 1st Pool 2, noon, Sumner

4 p.m. Semifinal winners, 4 p.m., Andrews