In a field of parity physically for community Tier I baseball provincials in Taber, it was the mental aspects that reigned supreme, as it was two visitors who played in the gold-medal game.
Taber peewee Jays had to play spectator after a 1-3 record in round-robin play in the five-team field.
Jays beat Rimbey 10-0 and lost to Coronation 18-8, St. Albert 16-12 and Provost 16-12.
“We matched up well, but we didn’t have the depth of pitching Provost and Coronation (gold-medal finalists) had. Overall, it was a good weekend, we just didn’t get the key defensive outs we needed at key times and that’s baseball,” said Ryan Fujita, head coach of the Taber peewee Jays. “We’d start every game well and then get into the fourth inning and we’d run into some troubles with some errors that allowed the other teams to get the momentum and we couldn’t get the momentum back. Mentally, we’d get a little tired at the end of games and we made errors that we usually don’t make at the beginning of the game. Our hitting was good, but it seemed like we’d get all our big hits with the bases empty.”
The Jays had earlier 10-runned Coronation in community round-offs, while Coronation returned the favour when it came to provincials with the Jays’ first game on Friday.
“I talked with their coach a bit and they wanted to come back strong and get some revenge on us. I knew they were strong and I knew we had to play a solid game,” said Fujita. “We made a couple of blunders and they turned it into a couple of big innings.”
Jays bounced back with a dominating blanking of Rimbey on the arm of Stefan Hughes, as the flame-thrower either recorded strikeouts or allowed only weak contact in the infield for four innings.
“He threw very efficiently and threw a lot of strikes. They just couldn’t do anything offensively, and when they did, we made the defensive plays,” said Fujita.
The Jays were able to keep small leads until the middle innings against the St. Albert Cardinals before defensive errors blew the game wide open for the opposition, as Kaden Fujita started on the mound.
“Our pitchers did well, but in the later innings we made some base-running errors, which started the momentum for them,” said Fujita. “We couldn’t get the momentum back and we let the game get away from us with errors.”
The loss against the eventual gold-medal winning Provost team, who trounced Coronation in the final 16-1, was a squad who had a plethora of arms to throw out against any squad, and throw strikes in the process.
“They were the team to beat. They are so deep. They have nine pitchers that could pitch and I had 10 players total on my team,” said Fujita. “With a five-team Tier I final that’s crucial because you have to play that extra game, which makes it difficult if you’re limited with pitchers.”
Nevertheless, Fujita was pleased with his squad, which was strong during round-off play and showed flashes of brilliance during provincial competition over the weekend.
“Overall, I was happy with the kids. They put in a good effort, they played well and tried their best.”