Going into the Norwest Midget AAA Baseball League season first-year head coach Dwayne Lalor was optimistic. And while things haven’t gone exactly as planned he has seen improvement and there’s still optimism.
“Right now we’re close, but we need to figure how to get over the hump,” he said. “We just seem to make an error at a key time, or don’t come up with the key hit. We’re losing a lot of games by one or two runs. Now we need to figure out how to get over that.
“The kids have developed where their skills are pretty consistent … pretty good, but that they have to work on that energy and some communication. They need to make that play which gets everyone excited and so far we haven’t been able to do that on a regular basis.
“We hope that the guys come fired up every day, but it doesn’t work that way. Even in the big leagues.”
The Braves have been working on consistency and working on being ready to make a play, whether it’s early in the game or late in the game.
“At times you can play a whole game and hardly get to make a play,” said Lalor, who is one of the premier players to come out of Red Deer, playing college ball at Washington State and with the national team.
“But you have to be prepared and give it all when the opportunity arises. Even if you don’t make the play you have to show an all-out effort. It says something to your teammates.”
The Braves showed exactly how good they can be by finishing second in the Kamloops midget AAA tournament.
“We did things better for longer than most of the other teams,” said Lalor.
“It looked like we had turned the corner on the season, but came back and had a couple of tough games, which set us back again. We need to get back to where we were in Kamloops.”
The Braves sit 11th in the 15 team league with a 7-17 record, which they could improve dramatically over the next nine days, as they play eight games, including a pair of three-game sets at home.
They host the Northern Lights from Grande Prairie Saturday (3 and 6 p.m.) and Sunday (10 a.m.). then host the Edmonton Cardinals II July 23 at noon and 3 p.m. and the 24th at 11 a.m. They also play a pair of midweek games.
“It will test us and if we get on a roll we will feel good about ourselves. We feel we’re competitive with both teams we play the three-game series with and if we can win five or six of the games it jumps us up in the standings.”
As it stands the Braves would play in the Tier II championship, which they won the past two seasons.
“We showed we were the class of that division but should be in the next level. We may not win the division, but should be competitive. We should be talking about making a push to finish in the top division during the season and play in those playoffs.
“That should be an expectation of the group.”
The Braves are a fairly young team with the likes of Mike Ozga, Ty Moline and Tsar Hester among the older group.
All three have been leaders on the mound and at the plate.
Hester leads the team with seven doubles and a .600 slugging percentage and a OPS (on base percentage plus slugging) of 1.072. Ozga, who plays for the University of Calgary during the school season, has a .333 batting average with 12 walks and 1.003 OPS. He is tied with Zach Olson and Zack Baker with nine RBIs each. He also has a team-leading 2-1 win-loss record.
Two other members of the Braves — Olson and Ty Wagar — attended the Prospects Baseball Academy in St. Albert while Cooper Jones will attend the Vauxhall Academy this fall.
While Lalor is busy with the Braves, he’s also head of the committee which will run the Canadian senior women’s baseball championship, Aug. 25-29. The five-team tournament will be a round-robin with semifinals, a bronze medal game and a final.
There’ll be teams from Alberta, Quebec, Ontario, B.C, and a prospects team which will consist of players who don’t make the Ontario provincial team along with players from the Maritimes and Manitoba.
“It’s mainly a team for the younger players who aren’t quite ready to play with the national program but are close,” explained Lalor.
The Canadian championship will also be used to select the 20 members of the national team. Red Deer’s Kelsey Lalor has played with the national program the last two years.
“We host the national championship, but as an added bonus 20 of the girls will receive national team hats following the tournament. They will leave for Korea and the World Cup in early September.
Central Alberta will be well represented on Team Alberta with Kelsey and Hayley Lalor, Heidi Northcott of Rocky Mountain House and Heather Northcott of Clive, Megan Cameron of Rimbey and Kaley Gilham of Rocky.
Lalor indicated he’s close to having everything wrapped up for the tournament but could use a bit more sponsorship and a few volunteers.
“We get sponsorship from the province and the Blue Jays and a bit from Baseball Canada. But we do have to pay for officials and some of those come from Ontario. So we do need a bit more financial help.”
Danny Rode is a retired Advocate reporter who can be reached at drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com. His work can also be seen at www.rdc.ab.ca/athleticsblog.