OLDS — The first AAA U13 boys baseball team based in Olds has been named, according to head coach Jason Jaffray.
The team, chosen a couple of weeks ago, held its first practice Sunday at the Apex Athlete & Sports Centre, an indoor sports facility in Olds.
“We got it named; everything’s kind of sorted out,” Jaffray said during an interview.
The team features players from across Central Alberta – including four from Olds.
Other players on the team come from as far afield as Three Hills, Acme, Cochrane, Eckville, Rocky Mountain House and Caroline.
"We’re kind of spread out from all over,” Jaffray said.
“It’s quite the process trying to recruit kind of the top players from all these different small organizations.”
The team plans to practise indoors at the APEX facility in Olds from now until the end of April before taking to the diamonds outdoors.
“We’re going to get about 30 hours of indoor training in and be ready kind of for May 1 is the plan,” Jaffray said.
“(I’m) really looking forward to it anyway. Should be a fun season.”
Jaffray said there’s been a crying need for U13 AAA baseball in Olds.
He said until now, kids who wanted to play baseball at the highest level in that age group had to travel to Calgary.
Jaffray said he and an assistant coach from Rocky Mountain House worked hard to make the U13 AAA team a reality. He's looking for great things from it this season.
“I think we’ve got an extremely strong group this year,” Jaffray said. “There’s only two first-year kids that are on the team, so it will be a little bit of an older group.”
He said the goal is to ensure AAA baseball at all age levels can grow in Olds.
“We’re trying to make this so Olds can be a triple A hub for a lot of these Central Alberta kids,” Jaffray said.
“We’re hoping to develop a program here in Olds where we can sustain a triple A program at multiple levels and keep building for years to come.”
Coaching is key.
"I think we’re set up in a pretty good spot here in Olds right now with having good coaches at multiple levels,” Jaffray said.
“And if you can have that, then you can grow kids, especially from the U7, U9, U11 age.
He said the younger you can teach kids the game, the more they’ll be able to develop their skills and be ready for more challenging levels.
In fact, Jaffray, who also serves as vice-president of Olds Minor Baseball this year, says that organization anticipates fielding U15 and U18 AA tier 1 teams this season.
“It’s kind of tough to explain, but unless you’re developing the kids at a young age, you’re not going to have a triple A team that you can just throw together at the U15, U18 levels.
“And that’s what we’re trying to develop now. If we can start it at the U13 level and those kids continue to move up and continue to develop, it might take a two, three-year span and we might have triple A teams at every level,” he said.
He said utilizing the indoor facility is an advantage too because kids can develop their skills for months before they set foot in the outdoor season.
Jaffray said a U18 AAA baseball team was fielded in Olds last year but was not run under the auspices of Olds Minor Baseball.
Also, he said a U15 AAA team was fielded a couple of seasons ago but died as a result of COVID restrictions.
“That was kind of right at the start of when COVID hit and it just – there were so many restrictions on what we were allowed to do,” Jaffray said.
“We were only allowed to have 10 people practising at a time and with some of those teams, with coaches and players, you’re looking at 15, 16 players out on the field. So that’s the only reason why that had failed before.”
Jaffray said the time is right to field the U13 AAA team because COVID restrictions are looser now.
“As soon as you’re outside, it seems like restrictions aren’t as strict as indoor policies and restrictions,” he said.
He’s hopeful a U15 AAA team could be fielded again some time in the future when enough kids with the right ability and training are available.
