Okotoks’ baseball prowess is getting a provincial spotlight this weekend.
The Southern Alberta High School Baseball League Championship is up for grabs this weekend with the Foothills Falcons and Holy Trinity Academy Knights sharing provincial hosting duties on the diamond.
“We just thought that we were two new teams and we have awesome facilities here in Okotoks,” said Falcons coach Kevin Jones. “And we wanted to bring this tournament to us for once instead of going down to Vauxhall or Med Hat or Milk River.
“We started talks about it at the beginning of the school year and we really started to bring things down a couple months ago and start to lock down Tourmaline Field and the umpires and everything else.”
The unforgiving single elimination format leaves little to no room for error.
Three teams from the West, Cardston along with the two Okotoks squads, and five teams from the East, a wide ranging area that includes schools from Medicine Hat, Vauxhall, Brooks and Dunmore, will compete for the title.
The Knights enter the tournament looking for their second championship in as many years after capturing the Tier II banner last year in Milk River.
“We have six players returning from last year’s team, which is great to have,” said Knights coach Nathan Thrift. “These returning players have been integral so far in the season with knowing what to expect in the league and knowing the systems we run as coaches already makes it easier to not have to re-teach to everyone again.”
Tourmaline Field, the state-of-the-art turf home to the Okotoks Dawgs Academy, will be the provincial venue along with two games at Littler Field at the Okotoks Recreation Centre.
“I think this is pretty cool to show off some of these facilities that we have, some of these schools haven’t seen that,” Jones added. “Some of these schools are playing on their backyard baseball diamond so to show them off a turf field and this beautiful venue that we have it’s really cool.
“And maybe it will bring a few more people to our team next year that we’re hosting these kind of things and have this calibre of players.”
The Knights have got the better of the Falcons in both meetings this season, by 11-8 and 11-6 margins.
“For some reason we’re not faring well against HTA, we have these close games and then at the last second we kind of lose our composure and can’t keep the league,” Jones said. “That’s frustrating, but we know we can play with them and then Cardston is a very strong team, they’re undefeated in our league right now.”
Foothills earned a big 16-3 win over Highwood last week, a victory they’re hoping to springboard into the championships.
“I think that perked up our team a little bit,” Jones added. “Wyatt Rogi on the mound pitched a few good innings and then actually dislocated his thumb when a ball came and hit him. We had a paramedic on scene and he was actually able to pop his finger back in.
“Everyone was playing really well, being really aggressive on the basepaths which was good to see.”
For the Knights, fundamental baseball is going to be key at championships.
“For our team this season we have continued to hit well and have come together as a team quickly in the short season,” Thrift said. “One area that has caused us a bit of trouble and has led to our first two losses have been errors. Both games we have lost this season we have had more than eight errors, so ensuring we play an error free game is the biggest part of our success going into provincials.”
Foothills opens the competition at noon against Med Hat while HTA gets on the field at 6 p.m. versus McCoy. The tournament concludes on May 25 with semifinal action at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and the provincial championship at 4 p.m.
The only probably scenario where the Falcons and Knights meet at the tournament would be in the championship match.
