Westlock baseball player Austin Watamaniuk recently brought home a gold medal from the Western Canadian Midget ‘AAA’ Championship in Winnipeg, Man., from Aug. 22-25.
Austin helped win the title as a shortstop in his first year with the St. Albert Cardinals. Although there were other players from Vegreville, Lacombe and St. Albert, he was the only Westlock player on the squad.
Austin said he got on the team after attending tryouts in April. “They went on for about a month and then the team was chosen from that,” he said.
Notably, the St. Albert squad started out the season fairly poorly and were nobody’s favourite to do anything.
Even after they embarked on a big winning streak, they still only finished out sixth in the standings with an 18-10 record, Austin noted.
“I think everyone on the team just started falling in together. They started playing well and having more fun during the year,” he said.
His father Kevin, who coached the team, said they qualified for the Western Championships after placing second at the Alberta provincial championships at Okotoks in late July.
At Okotoks, they beat the No. 1 and No. 2 top-ranked teams in the NorWest Midget ‘AA’ League, but lost out to the Okotoks Dawgs Red.
“We went in with the No. 5 team and we lost to the No. 3 team,” Kevin said.
Kevin said the team went 5-1 at the Western Championships. They finished the round robin with a 4-1 record, with their only loss to Team B.C., the Cloverdale Colts, in extra innings.
They then played the Colts in the final on Aug. 25 and ended up shutting them down 5-0.
“We had one of our better pitchers go up against them … and the bats were working,” said Kevin, noting they also had some pick-up players from Sherwood Park that helped out.
Austin said they were “pretty confident” going into the Western Championships.
“We were a bit surprised to do as well as did this year, but when it came to Westerns, we were pretty confident against the teams that we were playing against,” he said.
“By the finals, even though we lost to our opponents before, we knew we could do well against them in the next game,” Austin said.
As Austin noted, Kevin said the St. Albert squad peaked in mid-July, embarking on a 13-game winning streak before provincials.
“We peaked at the right time. We had a good July and August,” he said.
“It was a year of unexpected victories … To go to Western Canadians and come out with medals is pretty impressive, especially considering we had seven or eight first-year players on the team.”
Austin said he thought he could have played a bit better this year, but still did very well for a first-year Midget ‘AAA’ player. “It was a good learning experience and I’ll try to do better next year,” he said.
In contrast to Austin’s own assessment of his performance, Kevin said his son had a really strong season with the Cardinals.
“Most of the time, he has hitting No. 1 or No. 2 in the line-up,” he said. “To be in the full line-up for more than half the season … and all throughout playoffs and Westerns, he played in every game.”
Austin, who is in Grade 10 at St. Mary School, said he hopes to play with the St. Albert team next season as well.
He said he is busy with basketball, volleyball and golf during the school year.
