Baseball is alive and well in Canora as the Supers make ready to play a 14-game regular season schedule in the Southeast Senior Baseball League (SESBL) for 2016.
The schedule features each team playing one home game and one road game against each other team. The teams are: Willowbrook Royals, Yorkton Yankees, Langenburg Indians, Roblin Stars, Russell Bulls, and the Swan River Reds. The remaining two games in the schedule are to be played at the Yorkton Orioles and Parkland Padres, both of which are Twilite teams (players aged 35 and over). Considered part-time teams, the Padres and Orioles will play each of the seven full-time teams once. Games will count in the standings but both Twilite teams will not qualify for playoffs.
The rainout week is July 2-8 for teams needing to reschedule games.
The Playoff format remains unchanged from 2015: the No. 1 seed gets a first round bye, while the No 2 seed plays the No. 7 seed, No. 3 3 plays No. 6, and No. 4 plays No. 5 in the quarterfinals. Round 1 is a best-of-three series with the higher seed getting the extra home game if required. This series will take place July 9-17.
The semi finals (round two) will be another best-of-three series taking place between July 18-26 with the No. 1 seed taking on the lowest-ranked team while the other series will be the two remaining teams. Each higher ranked team gets home field advantage
The league final is a best-of-five series beginning on July 27.
The Supers have 24 names on its roster right now, but that does not mean that every player will be available for every game, said Greg Andreychuk who goes by several titles, including: coach, manager, organizer and publicity co-ordinator. It is hoped that each player can get in four games during the regular season so that he will qualify to play in the playoffs.
The roster is full of names of players with a lot of talent, he said. There is more than a half dozen that will be able to help out on the pitching mound; some are old timers like Derek Palagian and Darcy Blommaert and some are newcomers such as Jordan Bieber. Colby and Logan Parachoniak will be back but there is some real fear that Logan will not be able to pitch, or worse still – may not be able to play because of an elbow injury.
The Supers will be looking to Travis Mentanko, Zach Rakochy and Phil Sobkow to be the power hitters to march the team forward, said Andreychuk.
It will be a different kind of team when looking at each player’s strengths, but when they come together as a team the Supers should be able to field a team that will be among the best put forward, he said.
The Yorkton Yankees have won the league championship three of the last four years. The one year that the Yankees were not successful, it was Willowbrook that took the championship.
According to the schedule, season begins for the Supers on May 10 in Yorkton when they take on the Yankees. Canora’s next game will be on May 16 at Langenburg and the first home game is slated for May 17 when Roblin is supposed to travel to Canora. The next home game will be on May 6 when Russell is supposed to ravel to Canora.
