After completing their regular season, the Westlock Wild Pee Wee minor ball team is gearing up for its Tier 2 provincial tournament July 29 to Aug. 1 in Strathmore.
Recently, the team competed in a round of games against Tier 1 teams, but failed to secure even a single victory, said coach Greg Brown. However, just to be able to qualify to compete against those teams was an accomplishment in itself, he said.
Now that the team is slated to compete in the Tier 2 provincials, Brown said he believes the boys will do well.
“Hopefully in Tier 2 we’ll fare better,” he said. “I’m excited for the guys to compete.”
He added he believes the Wild will do well against the other Tier 2 teams because they have already played and beaten a number of them throughout the regular season.
“If the D (defence) is solid, they should do well,” he said.
As the regular season went on, Brown said he saw a “vast improvement” in how his team performed.
“I’m happy with the improvement,” he said. “It’s good to see.”
He said the defence showed the most improvement, while the hitting and pitching also showed a steady upward progression as the games wore on.
However, the exception to that trend, he said, was the games against Tier 1 teams in the last round, where the hitting went cold. Brown said he thinks that had to do with the fact the pitchers they were facing were throwing upwards of 60 m.p.h. (96 km/h).
The regular season wasn’t a conventional season where the team travelled and played different teams across the region. Instead, the season comprised a number of small, round-robin tournaments, he said.
In the first round, the Wild finished a game over .500, he said, but were slightly under .500 in Round 2. In fact, with the exception of the most recent round against the Tier 1 teams, the Wild stayed close to the break-even mark all year, he said.
With the provincial tournament on tap this weekend, Brown said he hopes to continue the fun the boys have been having.
“I think they’re having fun,” he said. “They’re a good group of boys.”
