Dwayne Lalor learned to play the game of baseball the correct way as a youngster and that carried him through an outstanding playing career.
Now as a head coach he’s forwarding that knowledge to the youngsters in the Red Deer Minor Baseball Association.
The Red Deer Dairy Queen Braves peewee AAA team is the latest to benefit from his knowledge.
“We try to instill a strong fundamental base to rely on and for the most part the kids do a good job. But sometimes we have to remember they’re 12 year-olds and it’s not cemented in there yet,” Lalor said with a laugh. “But they do a good job as a lot of the kids have been together in mosquito.”
The Braves hope that they can put everything together this weekend as they host the provincial peewee AAA performance championships at Great Chief Park.
They opened the round-robin portion of the five-team tournament by splitting a pair of games — losing 14-4 to Sherwood Park and beating Spruce Grove 16-6.
“We didn’t come out in that first game with as much enthusiasm as we should have,” said Lalor. “We also put ourselves into a position where we can’t afford another loss.”
Adam Sandstrom had a pair of doubles and two RBIs against Sherwood Park while Brad Pope had two singles. In the nightcap, Jordan Muirhead had two singles and two doubles, Sandstrom a single, triple and a walk and Griffin Moline two singles and a walk.
The Braves have a roster of 12 with Kelsey Lalor, Ethan Ropcean, Carter O’Donnell and Pope back from last year. Moline, Austin Kelts-Larsen, Parker Booth and Muirhead played peewee AA last year and Austin Hammond, Jared Lower and Zach Olson up from the provincial mosquito champion Braves. Sandstrom, who took last year off to play summer hockey, rounds out the roster.
“When we put together the team I wanted a group of kids who were versatile,” said Lalor. “That could be one of the problems when it comes to doing everything fundamentally correct, but I believe it’s important for the kids to be able to do everything. We use all 12 on the mound and they never know when they come to the park where they’ll hit in the lineup or where they’ll be playing.”
Lalor will utilize the players strength, but feels they may be forced to move around down the road.
“I played infield but made the national (senior) team as a centre-fielder,” he said.
The Braves finished around .500 in their six-team league, but were competitive with the other teams.
“Everyone beat everyone else,” he said.
Five of the six teams are at the provincials with only pennant winning Lloydminster not on hand as they’re playing in the Saskatchewan playoffs.
The Braves meet Albert today at 3 p.m. and face Edmonton Sunday at noon.
The top two teams advance to the Western Canadians and also meet in the final at 3 p.m. Sunday if there’s no tie-breakers.
In other action Friday, Edmonton downed Spruce Grove 21-0 and Sherwood Park beat St. Albert 15-3.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com