The Okotoks Dawgs Academy banner will be flying proudly across Canada this month.
Now the Okotoks Dawgs Bantam and Peewee squads will hope to bring back a banner of their own as they head east as the Alberta representatives at the Canadian Baseball Championships at the 15U and 13U levels.
“This group has been there before. They’ve been to nationals at Peewee so they know how to win,” said Bantam Dawgs Black coach Lou Pote. “Last time it was maybe a little bit of going there to experience it and now this year we’ve emphasized our goal is to win a national championship, to put our program on the map and try to get our first Bantam national championship.”
Several members of the Bantam squad competed for national glory two summers ago at the Peewee level.
Experience should serve them well in a second run through a tournament of such stature.
“Hopefully we do better this time,” said Bantam Dawgs Black pitcher Jake Rabe. “For sure we need to be a little smarter on what we do in between games and maybe go to bed a little earlier and less messing around, be more focused and give a better effort.”
Okotoks posted a dominant regular season and with the exception of one close contest blew away the field at the provincial championships last weekend.
That doesn’t mean the squad isn’t battle tested.
“We went to Kamloops and lost our second game of the tournament and ended up in the final,” Pote said. “These guys, whatever we’ve thrown at them they’ve really reacted well to. I’m not worried about that, it’s our job as coaches to reiterate to them ‘hey if we lose a game it’s no big deal, we’ve been in this position before.”
The Bantam Dawgs competed at the tournament most recently in 2015 where they finished out of the medals despite a promising start to the competition.
The academy has a national gold medal at the Midget level and is looking for its first in both Bantam and Peewee.
The Okotoks Peewee Dawgs could have something to say about that in a few days after booking its ticket to the 13U Championships the same weekend in Repentigny, Quebec.
Okotoks shook off an opening loss to claim the Alberta title in St. Albert and punch its ticket to nationals.
“Early in the tournament we struggled a bit offensively and our pitchers kept us in it. They did a really good job,” said Peewee Dawgs coach Josh MacInnis. “By game three when our offence started to turn around we went into cruise control after that. We were definitely the best team by the second game of the tournament.”
The competition is going to be another notch or two above what they’re used to once the team arrives in La Belle Province.
“You go and play against bigger, physically strong, faster teams and the biggest thing is to learn to play the game at a faster pace,” MacInnis said.
“In doing that staying relaxed and trying not to get too stressed out because it is a different atmosphere and different environment. When you go to nationals playing these all-star teams you can’t really afford to take a play off.
“Our plan is to win as many games as we can, but my expectations for these guys are every single day play the game hard, play the game the right way and if you do that let the results take care of themselves.”
For more information on the Baseball Canada Championships go to baseball.ca and find the championships tab.
