It appears Estevan Minor Baseball has hit the low point of the cycle in terms of enrolment at the AA level.
Unless someone steps forward quickly to coach, there will be no peewee AA team this year for the first time in recent memory.
"Nobody wants to commit to coaching, therefore there's nowhere for those kids to play this year other than house ball," said minor ball president Kent Phillips.
"It's too bad. There's always been a team in peewee as long as I've been involved, which is 15 years."
For the second straight year, there will also be no mosquito AA team, leaving bantam as the only age group with a AA club. Phillips is back to coach that team, which won provincials last year.
"We have lots in midget, but numbers are down in bantam and peewee. The numbers are starting to come back up in mosquito.
"I think three or four years from now, we'll be good again when the numbers correct themselves," Phillips said.
He added that there may not be a bantam house team, depending on how many players he keeps for the AA squad.
Bantam AA tryouts began last night at the leisure centre.
In other news, an all-Estevan coaching staff has been selected for the Southeast Legacy Twins, the midget AAA club representing southeast Saskatchewan.
The group includes Dave Odgers, Brad Orsted, Joe Lingelbach and Rick Lafrentz.
"All four of the dads have been coaches through our minor ball program through the course of their older kids' playing time," said Phillips.
All four have kids entering their final year of midget: Tanner Odgers, Austin Orsted, Jolan Lingelbach and Lucas Lafrentz.
"I think Dave will be the head coach, but they'll divvy up a lot of the responsibilities among the four of them," Phillips said.
EMB had considered also fielding a midget AA team, but Phillips said the Saskatchewan Prairie Baseball League's early deadline for team commitments wreaked havoc with that.
"There wasn't enough of a quick response back for AA. The league wants to know by the start of February what your intentions are. We didn't have enough positive feedback by then to commit to a season. Had they not wanted to know that soon, I think we probably could've had a team, but hockey was still going and we only had six or seven," said Phillips.
