Elks set to open conference play

By Lethbridge Herald on June 2, 2023.

Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

After opening the season with a couple of tournaments, the Lethbridge American Legion Elks AA baseball team travel down to Great Falls to open up conference play this weekend.

“I think we’ll now  have our full squad of 15  heading down to Great Falls,” said Elks head coach Scott Oikawa.

“Now all we’ve got to do is avoid the rain.”

The Elks have been able to see Great Falls play this season when they were up playing Vauxhall.

“Yeah, Great Falls (is) a quality club,” said Oikawa.

“I know they have been here the past few years. Like I say, they’re well coached and they play hard. We’re going to have to come out with a quality performance to beat them. But that’s by no means out of our realm of possibility. I think we’ve got the tools  that we can compete with pretty much all the clubs in the league. It’ll just be a just question of execution out there on the weekend.”

Oikawa thought the Elks got off to a little bit of a rocky start to start the season.

“But I do like the fact that we seem to be improving,” he said.

“We had some decent games last weekend and we definitely showed some improvement both on the mound and at the plate. I think we’re moving in the right direction and I do like (that) (we) seem to be building some solid team chemistry and should be a pretty good group to work with this year.”

The Elks are carrying 10 players from the single A Miners team this year and have a young look.

“It is always a little bit of a challenge to move (from) single A to double A and play the high intensity conference games,” said Oikawa.

“But from what I can tell from the make-up of many of our younger players, you know they’ve played some  high pressure games in the past ,and I think they seem to handle that little bit of extra competition. They seem to be handling it well. So hopefully we can take that into the conference.”

The Lethbridge American Legion Miners are also in action this weekend in town as they will take on the Vauxhall Spurs on Saturday and the Fort MacLeod Royals on Sunday  for a double headers beginning at 1 p.m. each day at Lloyd Nolan Yard.