Estevan will welcome the best bantam-age ballplayers to town this July for the baseball tournament portion of the 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games.
Eight bantam teams comprised of the top 2001 and 2002-born baseball players in the province will compete in a two-pool tournament and medal-round at Cactus Park from July 24 to 27. The strongest players in the tournament will then be selected to participate on Team Saskatchewan, which will go on to play against teams from other provinces.
Lindsay Clark, baseball representative for the Estevan 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games, said every year Baseball Saskatchewan holds a bantam selects tournament where each of the province’s eight zones puts a team in to battle for area supremacy and the players try to earn a spot on the provincial squad. He said every four years the Saskatchewan Summer Games becomes this bantam selects tournament and each kid who plays on one of these teams will be showcased and given a chance to excel against fierce competition.
“It’s a great experience for (kids) to come and play on a team and see where they fit in talent wise and that has always been the goal of it,” said Clark. “Everybody who makes the team gets to participate.”
The zone one team, which includes players from Estevan and the southeast of the province, will be picked from tryouts at Cactus Park that will go on May 29 and June 12.
Corey Krafchuk, head coach of the zone one baseball team, said the majority of the kids who make the team will be playing on their own clubs before the Summer Games start, but they will try to schedule a few exhibition games before July 24 in addition to the practices they’ll be holding. He said the team’s roster will likely include players from the Alameda Southeast A’s and Weyburn Beavers bantam AAA teams as well as strong ballplayers who are playing in small communities in the zone.
Krafchuk said bantam selects tournaments in other years usually are focused towards second-year bantam players, but the Summer Games tournament allows the coaching staff to open up the roster to more first-year kids. He said this is the first time he’s had the opportunity to lead a zone one team in his 15 years of coaching and he’s excited for the experience.
“I’m looking forward to it and I know a lot of the kids who I coach are really looking forward to it,” said Krafchuk, who regularly coaches the Weyburn bantam AAA Beavers. “It’s a showcase for Saskatchewan baseball and a lot of these kids want to play on Team Sask when they get older and they want to play some college ball. This is certainly a good stepping stone for them where they’ll be watched to a degree during the Summer Games in Estevan.”
