Prairie Baseball Academy ready for 2026 season

By Lethbridge Herald on February 26, 2026.

Nathan Reiter

Lethbridge Herald

While major leaguers are just beginning spring training in Florida and Arizona, it’s officially go time for the Prairie Baseball Academy Dawgs.

PBA will hit the road to Twin Falls, Idaho this weekend for non-conference games against the College of Southern Idaho (CSI) Golden Eagles to begin their season starting on Friday. PBA doesn’t begin conference play until Mar. 20 when they take on UBC, the newest team in the Canadian Colleges Baseball Conference (CCBC) in Vancouver.

Todd Hubka, the head coach of the PBA says he likes the returning core for his team.

“I really like the leadership of our sophomores that we have this year. I think this year we’re deeper on the mound than what we were last year to get through those midweek games. If we get into the bullpen on the weekend, I think we’re a lot stronger than we’ve been in the past with lots of different options. We’re going to hit. We hit every year and are confident that we’ll hit again this year. I really like what the guys have been doing in practice building up for this Friday. I’m looking forward to it.”

Last season, PBA finished third in the CCBC standings with an 18-13 record. They finished two and half games behind the University of Fraser Valley Cascades, who are coached by former Lethbridge Bull Riley Jepson. 

PBA reached a semi-final in the Canadian College World Series and nearly erased a seven run deficit in the late innings before falling to the eventual champion Okanagan College Coyotes.

It’s often an uphill battle for the PBA in the CCBC. Unlike a lot of their counterparts, the Dawgs are built similar to a junior college program south of the border. PBA will only have freshmen and sophomore players on their roster with the goal of the program to move players onto four-year programs in the United States and around Canada. Every other program in the CCBC can have players for a full five years of eligibility. 

Despite consistently being the youngest team in the league every year, Hubka says it doesn’t damper the expectations. 

“There’s some really good clubs in our league. For us to be playing that last game in May, we’re going to have to play really good baseball. It’s kind of (the) expectation. We see us playing for a championship at the end of the year and hopefully playing well enough throughout the year to win the league too. You have to play well to win games in our league.”

PBA will also head to Salt Lake City, Utah on Mar. 6-7 to take on the Salt Lake Community College Bruins. Historically, the PBA would also make a road trip to Las Vegas over the reading week break to play some exhibition games against the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) Coyotes. However, the Coyotes recently changed conferences so the dates they would usually play against PBA no longer worked on their schedule.

With many hours on the bus ahead for the PBA over the next two weekends, Hubka says they will prove important to help the team come together in the early part of the season.

“The season’s starting and it does help the kids get to know each other real quickly here. That’s what those first road trips are for is to bond as a team. We’re going through places a lot of these kids have never been and playing against some really good competition so it’s good to play these games early.”

Two sophomores on the PBA roster this year have Lethbridge connections in Ben Puszkar and River Hope. Puszkar is a second generation player for the PBA as his father, Denny, played during the early days of the program.

In an interview with the Herald, Puszkar says he’s looking forward to the season ahead.

“It’s super exciting, going into my last year at PBA. I’ve watched this program grow over my entire life and it’s super exciting to be able to represent the A in games and I’m super excited to try to make a difference and go for a championship.”

“CSI is a fantastic team. We played them last year. I think they had an (MLB) draft pick and a couple D1 commits. They’re going to bring us a good challenge, but I think it’s great to expose yourself to these great teams now.”

PBA begins their home schedule on Friday, April 10 when they take on the Victoria Golden Tide at Lloyd Nolan Yard. First pitch is set for 1 p.m.