Westman teens eager for national baseball tourney

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This article was published 24/08/2017 (3145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A young Manitoba team will host the best female baseball squads from B.C., Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec this weekend as the under-21 national women’s invitational championship begins today in Stonewall.

Kristi Morris of Minnedosa, Amber Baker of Strathclair, Caitlin Wilkinson and Lauren Bray of Eddystone, Jenai Buchanan of Crystal City and Olivia Sheldon of Ste. Rose du Lac are among the 16 players on the provincial team, which opens play today at Fines Field when Manitoba meets Ontario at 12:30 p.m.

The final is Sunday at 1 p.m.

“I think we just want to go out there and win a couple of games,” Morris said. “As long as we all try our best we’ll be happy. I don’t we have super high expectations for our first year. We know the competition is tough and we know what we’re going to be up against.”

To say that Manitoba is fielding a young team as it re-establishes its U21 squad would be an understatement.

Head coach Marc Bissonnette said five players on the U21 team this weekend also played on the U16 team at nationals last weekend, and none of the players are 21.

“We’re going to have a young team compared to the other ones,” Bissonnette said. “We don’t even have one 21-year-old player. We have two 20-year-old players, two 19-year-old players and the rest are younger than that. The two youngest are 15.”

One of the 15-year-olds is Baker, who won a bronze medal with the U16 provincial team last weekend in Vaughan, Ont., where she was selected as the all-star first baseman.

She’s realistic about what to expect on the weekend. As a result, she plans to a do a little bit of scouting.

“I hope to see what next year is going to bring and what all the other teams look like so that I know what I’ll be playing against,” Baker said. “I don’t expect to be playing a lot this weekend.”

The team held tryouts early in the spring in Winnipeg, and played some games before making cuts.

Bissonnette said some of the girls on the team play fastball, but most instead choose to play baseball on boys’ teams or do both.

Morris played with the Hamiota high school team and boys’ midget team, although she lives in Minnedosa.

“My parents put me in hardball when I was four years old and it kind of just stuck,” Morris said. “I didn’t really have an opportunity to switch to softball where we were from, we just had baseball. I grew up in Strathclair and there was no softball, it was just boys’ baseball.”

Baker’s motivation was similar as she played on the bantam Strathclair boys’ team.

“We had to go so far for softball that I just decided that since I love playing with the boys, I love the competition, and since boys say girls can’t play hardball, I just told them I could,” Baker said.

It’s the third time that Baker has been on a provincial team, after also representing Manitoba at the U14 and U16 level.

The first baseman also pitches.

“I have the heat and I have junk,” Baker said. “My first game (last weekend) I got MVP for pitching when we played Saskatchewan. I have a curveball and a fastball and changeup.”

Morris will also see time on the mound.

“I’m more of a pitcher than anything else but I play first base lots,” Morris said. “I consider myself kind of a utility player. I can play anywhere if needed.”

She worked on her batting with a coach in Portage la Prairie all winter so that her swing didn’t get out of practice.

Bissonnette said Morris, who will start at first base, has grown in recent years.

“She’s come a long way,” Bissonnette said. “Her pitching has improved tremendously so I’d like to be able to use her as a closer … Her bat has improved a lot this year. If she can hit the ball well, that will be very important for our team.”

Morris also brought some new tools to the mound, where she admits she isn’t a fireballer.

“I’m kind of mid-velocity,” Morris said. “I’m not super fast but I’m not slow. I throw a fastball, changeup and curveball. I just developed my curveball this last couple of years.”

Bissonnette said his biggest challenge is getting the team together for practices with players scattered across Manitoba.

He noted that when the reconstituted U16 team went to Halifax for the first time a few years ago, they finished last.

Since then, they’ve played for a medal the last four years and earned them three times.

Now it’s time to kickstart the U21 program.

“We’re not going there with a lot of huge expectations,” he said. “It’s our first year. We’re just getting back into this at this level. We’re going to be competitive, which is what we want to do. We’re not going out there to get our butt kicked every night.”

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