Young Elks optimistic for season

By Lethbridge Herald on May 17, 2023.

Herald photo by JUstin Seward Lethbridge Elks’ pitcher Aiden Wensmann gets ready to fire pitch at the plate during a game against Okotoks in this June 2022 file photo.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge American Legion Elks AA baseball team are set to dive into a new season today with a tournament in Vauxhall.

“I think we’ve got a nice group of players this year,” said Elks head coach Scott Oikawa.

“We’re young. We only returned five guys, so it’s definitely a new look to the club, but optimistic. You know, they’re working hard at this point and I guess we’ll find out where we’re at (today).”

The Elks picked 10 players this year from the single A Miners team from 2022.

“Well you know the Miners had a good year last year as well and they did some winning,” said Oikawa.

“So that’s always good to continue that culture up through our group. And like I say, there’s some quality ball players we’ll see. We’re missing a few here and there, and a few injuries, but hopefully by the time we get rolling in June we’ll have everybody available.”

The Elks will lean on their five returning players of David Stewart, Garrett Smith, Payton Lyon, Brennan McTavish and Corbin Roberts.

“And they got to see what it was like at the State tournament and throughout the conference play,” said Oikawa.

“So hopefully those five can help us along. Like I say, with the younger crew being able to compete at the Districts and through their conference play, that (leadership) should help them out a little bit as well.”

Oikawa feels this team will be aggressive at the plate.

“I think some of these guys will be pretty aggressive,” said Oikawa.

“Many of them had little bit of a spring schedule. We do have some that haven’t got that much playing time in the spring. So there will be some new at bats. But hopefully some of the work that they’ve done here the last few weeks will help them out.”

The Montana teams will be returning north of the border this season for the first time in three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s always nice,” said Oikawa.

“We love playing here in our home stadium in front of our home crowd here that’s been loyal for over 40 years. So (it is) nice to be able to put our product on the field again this year and hopefully see a lot of those people.”

Oikawa said the teams are pretty quality down there.

“We had a couple of years where we didn’t maybe quite get that quality competition due to the COVID,” said Oikawa.

“And they, for the most part, played kind of right through that. And you can see that their competitiveness (and) their intensity definitely didn’t skip a beat.”

Stewart thinks the Elks will be a scrappy team.

“You know take some extra bases when we can, throw a lot strikes, make good plays with our defence and then hopefully that can help us win a few games,” said Stewart.

Stewart wants to make sure every player is doing their job as a leader on the team.

“And for our team as whole, I think our biggest strength (is) going to be just kind of our depth and our grittiness,” said Stewart.

“I think we’re all pretty eager to get back out there, since we haven’t been able to play as much as these other teams in the  last few years. So I think we’re going to kind of use that fuel to motivate us a little bit.”

Despite having a lot of young guys on the pitching staff, Smith feels good about them.

“A few injuries to some older guys, but right now we should have a solid staff that can compete for us,” said Smith.