The road to Williamsport starts in Calgary this weekend for a group of Medicine Hat Little League baseball players.
The major AAA all-star team begins play at the Alberta championship tournament Saturday against Calgary’s Bow Ridge, hoping to stay through until next Friday’s championship final. A win there sends them packing to Ancaster, Ont. for nationals, with the ultimate goal the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Penn.
“It’s a collective group, these guys are all the same age group and we’ve had them for three or four years now since they were in minor,” said Hat head coach Brad Moch.
The team is poised to do well after getting to the final of their home tournament this past weekend. They lost their first four games of the season – incidentally at the same Calgary diamond they’re at for provincials – before picking up steam.
Moch was never really concerned, as all four losses were all by two-run margins.
“Our bats were kind of quiet then, the pitching was good and the fielding was really good,” said Moch. “Now this last weekend in Medicine Hat we puts the bats together, smoked a couple teams and scored a bunch of runs.”
Fifty-nine in five games, to be exact. They went 4-1, only losing the final 6-2 to Oyen.
The seven-team provincials is a round robin, with the top four teams squaring off in the medal round. Moch says depth will play a key factor in the grind of playing as many as eight games in six days.
“If you don’t get the job done one day, somebody else picks him up and that guy will be back the next day.”
