While it may not quite be the season for severe storms in the Estevan area, teams in the pee wee AAA division of Baseball Regina should be advised of a Tornado warning.
The Estevan TS&M Peewee Tornados won all four games they played last weekend, their opener in the league. Saturday, the team started their season against the Regina Pacers.
“We were a touch rusty first inning or two in the field,” said Tornados head coach Ryan Siever. “Nothing major but a couple of inexperienced things. That seemed to shake out pretty quick. After that, the boys were pretty solid throughout the rest of the weekend.
The Tornados defeated the Pacers 17-16 and 8-7 Saturday, and then took to the field with a pair of big wins against Swift Current 14-7 and 15-5.
“That first game against the Pacers, we were up three or four runs going into the seventh inning, Siever said. “They ended up getting a couple of runs against us to put us down by one and we were able to get a couple of baserunners and score on a walk-off hit.”
The Swift Current doubleheader was even more successful. The players have learned to play well in the Baseball Regina AAA Peewee League.
“We played in that league last year, and we have three players who played in that league last year so they kind of knew what to expect going into it,” Siever said. “They did a good job leading up to it this week with the rest of the boys. We’ve got five first year kids that came from mosquito age and most of them played on that Sluggers team. They adapted pretty quickly and did well. You can see their confidence grow from inning to inning and game to game.”
The late start to spring meant they only had a little bit of time to practice before the season started.
“We had two weeks of practice before the games got underway,” said Siever. “We got to do a lot of hitting work and not as much in the field as we would have liked.”
Still, with a bit more practice time and a few more games, the season looks to be coming along nicely for the Tornados.
“We’ve got a good group of kids with the team this year,” said Siever. “Their attitude has been really positive so far. It’ll be interesting to see other teams and see other competition how things stack up. Baseball is a game of failure and there are going to be some bad days. I just want to see how they respond to that but I do expect these boys will compete for a provincial championship either at the AAA level or a step bemlow that at the AA Tier I level depending on where we get ranked by Sask. Baseball.”
The Tornados were scheduled to play in Weyburn Thursday, and the team’s next games will be a pair of doubleheaders Saturday at home to White Butte (1 p.m. and 4 p.m.) and the Regina Buffalos (1 p.m. and 4 p.m.)
