An aspiring Sundre ballplayer was part of a team effort that secured a gold medal finish during the recent Alberta Summer Games.
Nicholas Backstrom, who is also playing his first season with the Calgary Junior Dinos Triple A baseball team, said last week that he had never before competed at such a level. He even almost seemed surprised — albeit pleasantly — at placing first.
“It was mind-blowing because there was a lot of good players and good teams there wanting the same thing,” he said.
“There was one game that didn’t really go our way until the end.”
The Zone 2 Big Country team — made up of players from communities around Calgary — was down 9-0 early in the first game of the competition, but later regained momentum and ended up winning 23-13, he said.
Eventually brought out to pitch, he threw numerous strikeouts, and during his time up to bat hit a home run as well as several RBIs, he said, adding he also managed to score a second home run during another game.
While they were supposed to play six games, rainy weather prompted organizers to reduce that number to four games, all of which they won, including the final against the Zone 4 team made up of players from Edmonton-area squads, he said.
The 15-year-old, whose family lives west of the Bergen Store, was first introduced to the sport at the age of about five, when he started playing T-ball with Sundre Minor Ball.
“It’s good because it’s a team sport. You can’t rely on one person to win the game — you have to rely on everybody,” he said.
The biggest hurdle is maintaining morale and mental focus while refraining from allowing any errors from snowballing into more mistakes, he said.
“The challenging part is to make sure everybody stays mentally strong through the game no matter what the barriers throughout the game are.”
The 2018 Alberta Summer Games were hosted July 19-22 in Grande Prairie.
Coming along to cheer him on were parents Clayton and Angela. However, his 13-year-old brother Anthony — also a baseball player with the Calgary Dinos organization — was scheduled to play some regular league games and was unable to attend, said Clayton, who like his son had never attended the Alberta Summer Games.
“I was really proud of the team,” he said.
“They had a rough start in the first game and put Nick in to pretty much save the day,” he said.
But despite that patchy start to the games, the team managed to maintain its momentum to win the final, he said.
“It was a good opportunity,” said Nicholas, adding that he felt privileged to get a chance to compete at that level and that he looks forward to continue playing for the foreseeable future.
