With more than a few wins under their belt, the Lacombe PeeWee AA Dodgers are heading to provincials.
The team of 12 have been playing strong and have survived 15 tiering games, landing them a spot in one of the top tiers.
PeeWee AA Dodgers Head Coach Lyle Lorenz said as a whole, he is pleased with the progress of team throughout the season.
“We have six players on our team who played community ball last year so only half of our team come from the AA background,” he said. “The kids are making good progress. We ended up in Tier 1 in the final round, which puts us in the top eight of 35 teams in the province. So you have to be fairly satisfied and happy with that.”
Due to their ranking, the Dodgers will be automatically competing in baseball provincials over the August long weekend. But what is still to be determined through game play is which tier the team will compete in. PeeWee provincials boasts six tiers this year.
“We will either be in Tier 1 of Tier 2,” said Lorenz. “That hasn’t been decided yet, so it all depends on the games coming up this week.”
Lorenz said the team, along with the Bantam 2015-07-16ers, have both put in bids to Baseball Alberta to host provincials in Lacombe on the same weekend.
The PeeWee AA Dodgers ran into some steep competition in the three games they played last weekend. “We ran into clearly the elite teams of the province, so we came out on the short end of all three games,” said Lorenz.
The Dodgers will be meeting up with a new batch of teams this coming weekend for the last three of their 18 tiering games.
“We play Camrose, Strathmore and Edmonton this weekend,” said Lorenz. “All three of the teams we will play are probably the top three teams in the province.”
Lorenz added the Dodgers will have their hands full as some of the competing teams could very well play at the AAA level.
“They are coming into the weekend maybe with one loss or two losses all yearlong and really close games,” he said. “They’ve got really good teams with lots of pitching and lots of experience at the AA level.”
The PeeWee Dodgers consist of five players from Rimbey, one player from Rocky Mountain House, one from Bentley and five from Lacombe.
Lorenz said not many players tried for the Dodgers from Lacombe, with most deciding to play community ball, however, the coaching staff is very happy with their selections.
“We are really happy with the progress of the team,” he said. “They really work hard. We’ve got an excellent group of kids to coach, all 12 of them. They are a lot of fun to work with and they like to learn.”
The Dodgers suffered a close loss (15-10) against Red Deer on Tuesday night, changing their provincial league record to 8-9.
The team will find out whether their bid to host provincials in Lacombe over the August long weekend is successful on Monday.
news@lacombeexpress.com