The Moose Jaw Little League All-Stars went into their tournament in Medicine Hat this past weekend with quite a few questions as to where they stand against the competition outside of Saskatchewan.
Now they’ve been answered. And the end result sees the local team as confident as ever heading into the Little League Sask provincial tournament this weekend.
The All-Stars reached the championship final at the six-team event, dropping a 5-2 decision to Calgary Rocky Mountain Little League after going undefeated through the round robin.
“It was a very good weekend, the boys played very, very well,” said All-Stars coach Troy Turner. “It was plus-35 C and we had back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday, so for us to bear that heat and come that close was really good.”
Moose Jaw opened the tournament with a 10-9 win over the Lethbridge Bulls before dominating their next two round-robin games 9-2 over Calgary West and 17-7 over Medicine Hat. That sent the All-Stars into the semifinal, where they rolled to a 15-7 over Fish Creek to advance to the title game.
With that kind of success under their belt, the local crew will be heading into Friday’s provincial opener against North Regina Little League with plenty of confidence.
“I like our chances quite a bit, we’re definitely looking forward to having a good weekend,” Turner said. “We still have to play our game and we haven’t had a chance to see them yet, they combined two teams into one so they’ll be stronger but I’m still really confident in our kids.”
The All-Stars were thrown a bit of a curveball when standout pitcher Ramsey Thompson was forced to step away from the team due to personal reasons, but Turner remains confident they’ll get through the best-of-three provincial tournament
“That’s definitely not ideal, but as far as the rest of our team and our coaching staff, we’re where we need to be when it comes to provincials,” Turner said. “We’ll need a couple of players to step up and fill that void when it comes to Canadians if we qualify, but for this weekend we feel we’re in pretty good shape.”
The key to success against North Regina will be what it has been all season: throw tons of runs on the board and ideally have the pitching and defence perform as well as they have throughout the campaign.
“We’ll have to stick to our game, making sure that we’re playing to our level and not their level will be an absolute key,” Turner said. “Then it’s just going out and pitching and playing defence, that’s what we need to do to be successful. Our hitting has always been there but pitching and defence will be the most important thing for us.”
Two wins this weekend, and things really take off -- the Moose Jaw All-Stars will be off to the Canadian Little League Championship, running from Aug. 4-13 in Calgary. A tournament title there, and it’s off to the legendary Little League World Series in Williamsport, Penn. from Aug. 17-28.
Game one of the provincial tournament goes at 6:15 p.m. Friday followed by game two at 2 p.m. on Saturday. The deciding contest will take place Sunday at a time to be determined. All games are in Regina.
