A clean slate awaits the competitors at the Southern Alberta High School Baseball League Championships.
That’s the proper mentality if the coaches have their way as the undefeated Holy Trinity Academy Knights and high-octane Foothills Falcons charge into Medicine Hat next weekend looking for a piece of provincial silverware.
“If we’re going into provincials 8-0 it doesn’t mean a whole lot, yes it’s good for our morale to go in on a big winning streak, but these are two teams we haven’t seen before,” said Knights head coach Eric McLeod. “We’ve done that in the past going into provincials and just got hammered, going in with that we’re undefeated attitude.
“I think we just have to go in with a clean slate.”
HTA goes into the tournament as the top seed in the West with an undefeated record in league play.
The Knights will see Vauxhall and Eagle Butte, the second and third seeds in the East, in the round-robin portion of the championships.
“I’ve told the boys from the start, it doesn’t matter if we’re winning 30-0 or losing 30-0 or it’s a 0-0 game,” the coach added. “We just have to go out there and give it our best every single game because you never know what happens.
“You can be up 10 runs and all it takes is one inning and it’s a tie ballgame.”
McLeod, a third-year member of the coaching staff and longtime coach with Okotoks Outlaws minor baseball, called this year’s Knights squad the best team he’s ever coached.
Impressive considering the team’s record of late with a 2018 provincial championship at the Tier II level and one loss season the following campaign at the Tier I level.
“This is my first time not knowing any of the players on the team,” McLeod said. “They’re all brand new faces, I didn’t know any names, didn’t know any skill level, I knew nothing going in.”
With weather impacting the season, the Knights got a later start on preseason and did some training within the gymnasiums.
Once the Knights suited up for real games, the coach was blown away.
“I wasn’t really able to tell the skill level of most of these kids because we didn’t have a field to play on,” McLeod said. “Now we’ve gone up and played a little bit better teams and it’s given us the chance to see the skill level of these guys.
“With the whole team it's basically I’m comfortable throwing any player in at any point in the game.”
McLeod stressed the attitude of the team has matched its talent, listing Ty Archer and Ethan Mackesey as terrific leaders on a team based largely of Grade 10 and 11 athletes adding Colton King has been an innings muncher on the mound with the likes of Spencer Trotter and Gavin Bishop helping to lead the team’s deep lineup of hitters.
“I’m blown away by the respect and the effort these guys are putting in,” the coach added.
The Falcons and Knights were co-hosts of the most recent provincial tournament in 2019, though with the two-year hiatus it’s a complete clean sweep of rosters taking to the diamond in Medicine Hat.
At provincials, the Falcons will see Cardston in the first round with Brooks to follow.
“It’s just going to be trying to minimize our errors, try to hit well,” said Falcons head coach Kevin Jones. “We’re going to see some different calibre of pitching; everyone is going to be throwing their aces so we’re going to have make sure we’re caught up to the fast speed these pitchers are going to be throwing.
“And just making sure we’re swinging the bat and hitting and taking our advantages when we’re on the basepaths, trying to steal and trying to move our feet around those bases and get some runs.”
Jones said Hogan Holditch and Adam Rowland have been key components on the pitching side of the equation while listing multi-sport stars Beynon Gwilliam and Avery Greig, basketball and hockey athletes respectively, as leaders at the plate.
“We have a really strong team,” he said. “We have a lot of players that play in the city and they’re balancing multiple leagues right now which is really cool to see.”
Foothills has been enjoying some of its best baseball of late with no losses on its record since its early season defeat to HTA, highlighted by three consecutive victories without giving up a run.
“Besides the HTA game we’ve only given up six runs in the other seven games,” Jones said. “It’s a quick end to the season, but we’ve played really well recently and we’re just hoping to continue that as we play these harder Tier I teams.
“We’re hoping to see them again and if we do see them at provincials it will be in the championship so that would be cool to see an Okotoks-Okotoks championship.”
The SAHSBL Championships run May 27-28 in Medicine Hat.
