The South Central Cubs had an impressive performance during the provincial championships — they returned home with a first-place victory.
Assistant Coach Donovan Bergman’s opinion on the achievement is quite easy to sum up.
“I love it,” he says. “I absolutely love it.”
This year, the provincials took place in Brandon, where the 15U team went undefeated.
“We went 6-0,” says Bergman. “I was just [asking] the kids if they had a sense [of] how well we played on the weekend. We outscored our opponents 70 to 20 in our six games. We had a couple of close games but also had a couple of blowouts, and the kids played amazingly all weekend long.”
Bergman says that the closest game was a 6-5 win over a team from Winnipeg on Saturday. Before the game, both teams were 3-0. It was the last round-robin game, and the winner of this match up — which ended up being the Cubs — took first in the pool.
“That was a big game that set us up for a . . . much easier semi-final than what it would have been otherwise,” Bergman says.
For Bergman, the 15U team’s “all-star” status is something new to Morden.
"It's neat,” he says. “This is the first time that South Central has had a kind of regional all-star team like this. You take kids [that] haven't played together [and] don't know each other very well, [and] . . . you kind of start trying to build a bit of a feeling of team and getting that vibe going for everybody. As we got rolling with some of our exhibition games, you could see that there was something possibly special about this team. I think we lost one of our exhibition games but won the rest of them.”
Bergman says that some of the exhibition games were won by an impressive margin, which indicated to coaching staff that it would be a good season for the team.
“[It] was amazing [for me as a coach] to see . . . kids . . . performing at the highest level for them in the provincials,” he says. “It was amazing — it was so fun to watch.”
The players also enjoyed their successful weekend in Brandon.
Pitcher Caleb Harder, who throws fastballs and curveballs, threw 93 pitches in the final game. He says pitching the game was not nerve-wracking because it wasn’t his first time in that situation.
“Last year I pitched in the finals as well, so that kind of helped,” he says.
For Harder, it also helped that his teammates know how to score runs.
To hear the rest of the interview with Caleb and from Faith (second base, right field), Chase (centerfield), Luke (first base and pitcher), Gavin (left field), Josiah (outfield, third base, pitcher), Carter (pitcher, first base), and Brody (catcher), listen to interview below.
Congratulations to the South Central 15U AA provincial champions.
~With files from Ty Hildebrand~