Elks look to improve with each game in home tournament

By Lethbridge Herald on June 15, 2023.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Elks American Legion AA baseball team are set to host their annual  Mary Oikawa  Memorial Baseball Tournament at Spitz Stadium this weekend.

Coach Scott Oikawa feels the team has been making some strides heading into this weekend.

“We did have you know a nice win in conference against Helena on the weekend to kind of get us into this tournament,” said Oikawa.

“At the same time, you know, a few conferences losses have kind of shown some of the things that we need to improve on. So hopefully we can use this weekend to work on some of those.”

Oikawa and his coaching staff are preparing the team as if there is the possibility of up to five games.

“You know you have to make sure that you’re rested and your arms are ready to go,” he said.

“We do have conference after as well. So we’re moving into a stretch of a lot of games. So hopefully we can try to get healthy and then just kind of execute on some of our game play.”

Teams include Edmonton’s Absolute Human Performance, Calgary Blues, Saskatoon Diamondbacks, Moose Jaw Canucks and the Elks.

“You know from what I can see I think there’ll be a lot of parody,” said Oikawa.

“We’ve played a few of the teams in the tournament and they’re quality clubs. So I mean that would be my guess that it being a round robin, I would think there may be a lot of  teams beating a lot of teams. So it should be interesting when we get to the final tally.”

The Elks will open up with two games today against Calgary Blues at 1:30 p.m. and the night game  against the Canucks at 7:30 p.m. at Spitz Stadium.

Saturday’s schedule will see the Elks face the Absolute Human Performance at 1 p.m. and wrap up their round robin at 7 p.m. against the Diamondbacks.

The championship game goes Sunday at 4 p.m. at Spitz Stadium.