Colts hope to carry momentum into postseason action

By JAMES TUBB on May 31, 2023.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

The McCoy Colts look to continue their hot play as they enter the playoffs.

The Colts won their last three Alberta Premiere Baseball League regular season contests and look to continue that momentum as they get their playoffs started tonight. The Colts, who finished the regular season in a three-way tie for second place but ended up the higher seed due to run differential, host Magrath tonight for a 5:30 p.m. contest at McCoy field.

Head coach Cole Schreiber says even though they beat Magrath handily early in the season, they’re ready for a fight.

“You never know when you get to the two seed versus the seven seed,” Schreiber said. “They might have one arm who can step up against us, we know we’re gonna get their best because they have nothing to lose, they’re the lower seed. We have to be really ready to go that night or else maybe things don’t go as planned. But we like our odds and I think we have enough depth to do it.”

The Colts entered the season as one of the younger teams in the APBL after turning over a lot of their roster at the end of last season. Schreiber says he’s proud of how his young team performed in the regular season and regardless of playoff results, is excited to see them continue growing.

“Looking back on the season, we have to be happy with what we’ve accomplished with such a young group and hopefully it leads to good things going next year,” Schreiber said. “Our JV team had a really strong year too and we know there’s going to be some kids coming up next year.”

Having that momentum coming into the playoffs, having won their last three, Schreiber says they still have more to show once the pressure turns up in the postseason.

“I don’t think we played our best at any point during those last three games,” Schreiber said. “For us to still have fairly big wins gives us a lot of confidence that when we’re at our best, we can get a lot done and we have to be ready to go. Everybody has to contribute. Our pitchers have to be on, the bats have to come alive when we need them and we have to be smart out there.”

While the Colts don’t want to look too far ahead, there is a chance they could have a rematch of last year’s provincial finals, where they lost the inner-city match against the Hat High Hawks for the championship. Schreiber says the lesson he hopes his players take from that loss into these playoffs, you’re not out of a game until the lights turn off.

“We learned that last year in playoffs we had a couple convincing wins, but against Hat High, we never had a lead but we felt like we were right there and sometimes guys tried to do too much,” Schreiber said. “Hopefully having that experience from last year and even having some guys who have played Legion before playing in big tournament games, you just have to tell him we’re here for a reason. Guys have performed well enough to get to this point, we just have to keep it going. It’s tough sometimes but you have to rely on your veterans to take that load off the younger guys.”

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