A tough regular season came to a close for the Estevan TS&M peewee AAA Tornados with 21-6 and 16-6 losses to the Regina White Sox at Cactus Park’s Dayman Trucking Co. Ltd. Field on Sunday, but a move to more competitive oppositiion at this month’s provincial tournament raises hope for the future.
The Tornados (4-18) got off to a poor start in the opening game of the doubleheader giving up six runs in the top of the first inning to the White Sox (16-1-2), but battled back to make the score 6-3 after two with Kaleb Poole, Tayce Miller and Kyler Dutka making their way across the plate. The White Sox bats didn’t let up in the second half of the doubleheader notching six home runs in the five-inning game.
Tim Miller, coach of the Tornados, said the kids showed a good improvement in the second half of the doubleheader, but a few errors in the field came back to bite them. He said despite going down early in each game the boys kept hitting against the White Sox showing the strides they’ve made in their first year of Baseball Regina league action.
“The defensive side is coming,” said Miller. “We’ve cut the errors down, so that is good. Pitching has been okay for the most part and then hitting we went into a slump and now we’re starting (to get out of it)…Everybody had a base hit today, so that’s something to be positive about.”
The Tornados head to Melville this weekend for a tournament where they are placed in an opening pool with clubs from Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Mountain. Following the tournament, the team will compete in Baseball Regina league playoffs on July 11 and 12 before advancing to the peewee AA provincial championships in Lloydminster from July 22 to 24.
“Moose Mountain, that’s a game we want to concentrate on and go after a win in that one and then it will be a crossover to see who we get,” said Miller, about their focus heading into Melville. “If we are third in our pool we’ll be against some of the teams that we’re going to play in (Lloydminster) for provincials, so if we can see one or two of those teams, see how we compare (and) shoot for one or two wins this upcoming weekend it’ll give the kids some confidence. We beat Weyburn last week, so that helps with the confidence a little bit, so it would be nice to win a couple games up in Melville.”
