The season continues for the Barrhead Midget Orioles, who played host to three teams over the weekend.
Barrhead came out with three losses in their pocket, but head coach Steve Hunter said the weekend was a learning experience for the team.
The Orioles kicked off the weekend with a game against Whitecourt at 9 a.m. Saturday morning. Barrhead then played Peace River at 6 p.m. later that day, and the boys finished their weekend off against Slave Lake Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. Hunter said he knew going in that Slave Lake was a tier one provincial team last year, so the score was not something he was concerned about.
“They’re a year older now, and just about every one of them is third year midget,” he said. “We’re first year midget players. In midget baseball the players can be 18, and all my players are basically 16.”
At the start of the season, teams are thrown into games geographically, regardless of skill level. As the season goes on, teams are tiered.
“Every time you go through a section, which is six games, they move you around to where you’re competing with people of your own caliber,” said Hunter. “There is tiering all the way through until provincials, which is near the end of July.”
In the meantime, Hunter said the team will be working on fielding and hitting.
“There are very subtle differences that you learn over time. Some of them haven’t even played before with overhand pitching,” said Hunter. “They just need to play ball.”
Despite the team’s losses, Hunter said playing host over the weekend was a success. There were probably about 50 players and their parents, he said, and Barrhead showed itself well.
“Everyone I talked to was just so happy with Barrhead as a community, and they loved our diamond,” said Hunter. “And the weather, it threatened to rain, but it didn’t.”
Additionally, help to keep the games running smoothly was plentiful. Hunter said there were no problems finding people to run concession, keep score and tend to the field.
“Our volunteers and parents stepped up. Even the umpires were quite pleased with how it went and said they would love to come back,” said Hunter.”We hope to host again. It went very well.”
The Barrhead boys play again June 7 and 8, as well as June 14 and 15. However they won’t know the location or who they’ll hit the diamond against until Baseball Alberta sends out a schedule.
