SUNDRE – The president of Sundre Minor Ball is glad to once again have access to all three local diamonds.
The outfield on Diamond 2 was closed last year when the municipality reseeded the grounds, which forced the organization to schedule some games elsewhere.
“It’s a huge relief actually,” Michele Blackhurst told the Albertan on June 6 when asked how it felt to finally be able to play on all of the local diamonds.
“It’s so much easier for scheduling, and it’s just simpler to have everything in town,” she said, adding the outfield is also looking “really good.”
“The town did a good job and they were really good about keeping in touch with us,” she said.
With the season now essentially in full swing following a somewhat slow start, Blackhurst said things are going well this year.
“It’s going by quickly,” she said.
“We had some challenges (earlier on in the season) with the weather as we always do in Alberta – if it’s not smoke, it’s usually rain – but it’s still going really good,” she said, adding the season typically winds up by the end of June.
“We have a lot of kids again this year, which is great, and lots of wonderful coaches,” she said.
There overall are 215 players registered in Sundre Minor Ball, which breaks down to eight baseball teams, six softball teams as well as first six first league teams involving coach pitch and sometimes T-ball for younger players aged 5-7, she said.
That’s almost on par with last year.
“We are down one baseball team this season compared with last,” she said, adding there weren’t quite enough players signed on to form up a full U18 squad.
But there are two baseball teams in each of the remaining age categories of U9, U11, U13 and U15, and there are also two U11 softball teams while the other age categories of U9, U13, U15 and U17 each have one team, she said.
Depending on the discipline, they play either in the Chinook Baseball League or the Central Alberta Softball League.
This past weekend, the U15 squads hosted on June 7-9 a baseball tournament that including the hosts featured six teams with the Sundre U15-1 Stealers going onto win a silver medal and the U15-2 Stealers placing fourth. The squad from Trochu ended up winning gold, while Olds finished in third place for a bronze medal.
And this coming weekend, June 14-16, the U11s and U9s are hosting another baseball tournament, with eight teams playing in each age group, said Blackhurst.
