ESTEVAN - The Estevan 18U AA Brewers are eager for the Western Canada Baseball Championships to get underway.
The Brewers will be the host team for the tournament, which begins with opening ceremonies on Aug. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at Lynn Prime Park.
Their first game is the following morning at 8:30 a.m. against Manitoba’s Elmwood Giants. then they play at 4:45 p.m. against the Assiniboia Aces, who are representing Saskatchewan.
Estevan will have a break until 2 p.m. the following afternoon, when they play against Alberta’s Edmonton Padres, and they will wrap up the round robin at 11:15 a.m. on Aug. 21 against B.C.’s Vancouver Community Mounties.
If a tie-breaker is needed, it would be Aug. 21 at 2 p.m. and the final would go at 4:45 p.m. If a tie-breaker isn’t required, the final would start at 2 p.m.
All U18 games will be at Lynn Prime Park.
Coach Ryan Siever said they finished the playoffs a few weeks ago and had an exhibition game last week.
“If we go out and play our game that I know we’re capable of and that we’ve seen quite often this year, I think we have a fairly good shot to make it all the way to the final on Sunday,” said coach Ryan Siever.
The Brewers have added three players from Regina and one from Weyburn for Westerns.
Assiniboia is the only team that Siever has encountered this season. He doesn’t know much about the other teams, other than they’ll be facing a team from Manitoba that played at the AAA level this season.
“We’re going to see the best team out of each province at this age level and for this calibre, and I believe all these other teams will have picked up some players as well, and it will be some really good baseball over the three days,” said Siever.
The talent on the teams will hopefully attract baseball fans from the area to watch the games, he said.
The U18 Brewers struggled to start the season, but rattled off a seven-game winning streak in league play. Then they reached the semifinal at provincials. Siever hopes the team can keep the momentum going for Westerns.
“We were playing a lot of close games, and we just weren’t figuring out ways to finish them off or to win them. And then we went on a nice hot streak,” said Siever, who could see the confidence in the players growing with each victory.
“They came to the games expecting to win every single time because of the way they were playing.”
The Western Canada Baseball Championship is the latest great event to come to the community, Siever said, and he expects this will be a great chance to showcase the facilities.
“Both of our main ballparks here are in really good condition thanks to Mel Murray, and it’s nice for other centres to see what we’re doing and see what sort of facilities we can offer for everybody around here,” he said.
