Barrhead is becoming known as a powerhouse in minor baseball.
For the second straight week a team from Barrhead has made it to the Alberta Baseball Association provincial finals, this time winning the championship by going undefeated in the provincial midget tier II tournament on the Hertitage Day long weekend.
The previous week the Barrhead Orioles bantam team captured the silver medal at a tournament in Calgary.
The Orioles started the provincial tournament by facing the Calgary Cubs.
Steve Hunter, coach for the Barrhead Orange Orioles team, said after watching the Orioles performance Saturday against the Cubs he knew the Orioles were going to have a strong tournament.
“We played really well and hit the ball hard,” he said, adding the team defeated the Cubs by a score of 15 to 5 in five innings of play.
In their second game against the St. Albert Blues, the team continued their winning ways defeating the St. Albert team by a score of 5 to 2.
“The boys were really excited to play in this game,” Hunter said, adding it was the first time the team has played in a professional type of stadium (Seaman). “It is a beautiful facility worthy of MLB (major league baseball) or at least minor league ball, something like Telus field in Edmonton.”
Seaman stadium boasts seating for 1,600, with additional 1,000 in berm seating. The stadium’s field is also one of the largest minor league ball parks in the country.
The dimensions are 330, 400 and 325 feet for the left, centre and right fields, respectively. To put that in perspective the dimensions for the Wrigley Field in Chicago is 355 ft. in left field, 400 ft. in centre field and 368 ft. in right field.
“One of the really cool things that happened in that game is Sawyer Trynchy hit a 380 ft home run that was well over the fence,” he said, adding that was only one of the highlights of the game.
Hunter noted that in the game against St. Albert the Orioles made half-a-dozen outstanding defensive plays.
“Actually we played really well for the entire tournament,” Hunter said. “I think over the entire five games we only made a couple of errors. We hit and fielded very well.”
In the final game of the round robin tournament the Orioles defeated the Edmonton Angels 10 to 6.
The victory placed the Orioles in first seed position for the semi-final game where they played and defeated a team from Red Deer by a score of 10 to 1.
In the finals, Barrhead once again faced the St. Albert Blues, this time winning by a score of 11 to 6.
“I am so proud of everyone on the team, we had a great year and we played some really strong ball and just about made it to tier I,” he said.
In minor league baseball there are five tiers with number one being the strongest. “In tier I teams have kids coming out to tryout for them, while we were asking kids to come and play for us,” Hunter said, adding that the way the team played, they could have played in the tier I championship and the result would have been the same.
Hunter said, although the team had its moments they played well in the majority of their games all season and he could see constant improvement, he always knew the team could perform at a higher level.
“Everything just fell into place during the finals,” he said. “During the season you saw glimpses of what the team was truly capable of, but for the last five games I haven’t seen anything like it. I don’t think any of those teams could have touched us.”
As for what the future holds for the Orange Orioles, Hunter isn’t sure. This year there was enough interest for Barrhead to have two midget teams. Next year there might only be one, but the one thing he is sure of is that the future of minor baseball in Barrhead is bright.
“The bantams just won the silver medal in tier III,” Hunter said, adding that the bantams who are on his team played on the tier V bantam team. “So for those bantams, which is mostly a first year team, to already be in tier III, the future really looks bright for the upcoming midget teams.”
