Norcrest U13AA takes home Silver Championship Turkey Classic banner

By Cole Parkinson
Taber Times

While fall may not be perceived as perfect baseball weather, many players in the region would disagree. Norcrest/Med Hat, a team with players from across southern Alberta, was put together this fall and participated in the Best of the West Turkey Classic from Oct. 11-14. The team consisted of Caleb Nelson (Burdett), Grady Hall (Magrath), Quaid Finlayson (Enchant), Josie Giles (Brooks), Hudson Harick (Brooks), Colin Friesen (Picture Butte), Hudson Ilczynski (Taber), Kelahni Mulrooney (Brooks), Ryder Martens (Medicine Hat), Ryder DeBolt (Vulcan), Mitchell Kimoto (Taber), and Liam Pittman (Warner). The coaching staff was head coach Dale Tilleman, and assistants Ryan Hall, Dave Kimoto, and Jake Ilczynski.

“This team is from rural Southern Alberta. So anyway, so we tried to organize it along the lines that kids would still be able to participate in other sports, but at the same time be a member of this team,” explained Tilleman. “We had five practices in total and we played against Lethbridge before we went out there, that was on Oct. 5 (games against Lethbridge). Basically, the kids came to a tryout, we had two different dates to try out, and then they came and we selected the team, 12 kids, and that’s pretty much it.”

With a quick tryout and only a few games before the tournament out in Kamloops, the team gelled together pretty quickly. The biggest thing was getting the best athletes while also not being a burden on any other fall sports they may have been participating in.

“It wasn’t like an arduous long season or anything like that, again our hope was to make sure the kids that were playing other sports would still have an opportunity to be part of this,” added Tilleman. “(The players) were from Chinook West, they’re also from South Chief and Norcrest, but of the kids, the 12 went out there, nine of them had just been in the Norcrest program.”

Right off the bat, the team looked ready for big things. Despite splitting the doubleheader against Lethbridge, the coaching staff was pretty excited about what they saw over the two games.

“I thought they were pretty good, even the first doubleheader we played, I mean, we split, and we probably should have won both games against Lethbridge. Lethbridge was in the AAA category, we were AA, so yeah, I didn’t think it was too bad. We had some good practices which helped, and I think sometimes people don’t pay close enough attention to that as far as the success of the team is concerned, having good practices,” continued Tilleman, who also touched on how the coaches shaped the few practices to get the most of the team.  “I think the one thing we did was keep the kids busy. We divided them into different groups and we did make sure that they didn’t just play (one position). We touched on different skills, we wanted to make sure that nobody was kind of pigeonholed in a certain position, we needed a little bit of flexibility with the squad, so that was probably the biggest reason, just having good practices. Ensuring the kids got involved in different positions and the kids were kept busy and upbeat and working hard at their skills.”

Another huge key to success for any baseball club is having good, reliable pitching. With a number of big arms on the squad, the coaching staff was happy to be able to throw different players on the mound throughout the tournament.

“Most were pitchers, and they pitched pretty well. That was one of the things that we had some pitching depth — that was probably the biggest key to our success is the fact that we had lots of good arms and they threw strikes. We had some real good pitching performances for sure,” stated Tilleman.

The team opened with a 14-5 loss against COMOX and an 8-6 loss against KMBA but that wasn’t a deterrent for the team. They showed their resilience in game three when they moved over to the Silver AA bracket. In the first game, the team was able to beat Penticton 9-2. Heading into the semi-finals, the team matched up against the LV Giants. In a close game, it was Norcrest who was able to win 7-5 and advance to the Silver AA Championship against BLE White. In the end, it was Norcrest who was able to carve out a 6-5 victory.

“I think as far as a high point is concerned, just the fact that they did kind of come together as a team, more so the last day, and they did a real good job running the bases as the tournament went on.  I’ll mention again, the pitching — the pitchers got ahead, the fact that most of the performances were real good,” stated Tilleman.

With the hopes that the fall ball team will continue next year, Tilleman is excited at what the future could bring. One thing the coaching staff is hoping to see is better field maintenance later into the fall.

“I can say I wish that there was greater care and attention paid to youth baseball from the perspective of, you know, the town (of Taber),” said Tilleman. “I think that that is unfortunate because, you know, we only had our field dragged the total three times from the beginning of September until our last practice on the 10th of October. And that, you know, dragging the field was somewhat similar to, you know, cleaning the ice for practice or a game.”

But overall, this was an incredible first foray into fall baseball for Norcrest and the coaching staff was happy with how fast things came together.