Elks and Miners rosters now set

By Lethbridge Herald on May 9, 2022.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge American Legion Baseball’s Elks ‘AA’ and Miners ‘A’ rosters are now set for the 2022 season after try-outs wrapped up with a scrimmage at Spitz Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

There were 41 players between the ages of 16-18 that tried out to make one of the rosters and didn’t make either coach’s decisions easy going into the one-on-one interviews after the scrimmage.

Of the 41 players, the Miners took 16 and the Elks took 15 and 10 were cut.

“The roster seems to look very strong”, said Nicholas Ankermann, Miners head coach.

“It was a very tough decision that we had to make. We had a lot of guys to pick from, unfortunately we had to cut some guys.”

The Miners ended up taking 16 players, instead of the original 15 because the coaches couldn’t decide.

“Overall, all the kids, they’re all very excited to get back out on the field with each other because they’ve been playing against each other with high school ball going on. But  now they’re  kind of all coming together now to play on the same team. So they seem very excited. We’re also really excited about it as well.

There was a skills session earlier the week where players ran their dash times, fielded ground and fly balls  batting practice and wrapped up with the scrimmage.

“Overall we were impressed,” said Ankermann.

“ A lot of kids made statements today that did seal their spot on the team. All those bubble guys again showed up today and they put it all out there, and that’s what made our decision even tougher.”

Ankermann says they like to see players that are coachable and are willing to learn and teach each other.

The Miners will have a quick turnaround as they are hosting the annual Ron Matthews Memorial Tournament this weekend at Spitz Stadium for the first time in three years.

The team will resume travelling to Montana this summer.

“Just getting better everyday, said Ankermann, on the season’s focus.

“It’ll be rocky probably to begin with, just with getting used to how each other’s playing style is and finding positions. But we just want to get better every day, continue to compete, don’t take any innings off. We still want them to roll out there because we know a lot of those teams that are down in the States, they’ve probably been practicing together for some time now.”

The 2022 Miners roster:  Dylan Asplund, Carter Capton, Tye Carrier, Karsen Haney, River Hope. Kieran Inaba, Charlie Kambeitz ,Joshua McNeil, Tristan Oriold, Cooper Oriold-Climenhaga, Kade Pallett, Ben Puszkar, Lyle Steadman, JT Toker, Alex Westlund and Matthew Wright.

Like Ankermann, Elks head coach Scott Oikawa felt there were difficult decisions.

“I think that speaks to the quality of commitment and the talent of the players that we have in this program and they definitely made it tough this year,” said Oikawa.

With players playing close to home over the last couple of years and not being able to travel down to the United States, Oikawa said it’s created a nice bond between the players, but are ready to get back out on the road.

His hope is that the team will represent the community, country and province well in the Montana state league.

“I think we have a quality group of players,” he said.

“…I’m hoping (the) development that we’ve gone through will set us up quite well for this season.”

The Elks will open up the season with a May long weekend in Vauxhaul, a Medicine Hat tournament and their home tournament in June before heading down to Montana for league games in July.

The 2022 Elks roster:  Jaxon  Filipenko, Teigan Parenteau, Aiden Wensmann, Zachary Lyon, Brennan McTavish, Sebastien Sanchez-dias, Corbin Roberts, Garrett Smith, David Stewart, Licas Pusker, Sam Hilgerson, Payton Lyon, Craig Shilliday, Riley Pearce and Shay McTavish.