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After a thrilling tournament win, the Garden Valley Collegiate Zodiacs will once again represent Zone 4 at the upcoming provincials in Stonewall, and head coach Darren Crane says this group is primed to bring home a win.
Before looking into the most recent event, Crane went back to the formation of this team and says there was magic early. "It's been interesting, it's a unique year, every few years we take a trip down to Minneapolis as a group, sort of team bonding. We started our tryouts way back in February here in Winkler, so we've been going at this for a long time. We did tryouts and cuts to get the final team, then we went out to Minneapolis for four days, did some team bonding, caught a couple Twins games and it was great for the guys to get to know each other. When we got back, we jumped right into the regular season schedule."
When building the team, Crane says there was a balance between what they saw in the moment and what they believed certain players could grow into. "I think as a coach, when you're trying to build a high school team, it all falls into your lap. We have a strong representation of grade 12's this year and they've been in the program, some of them for three or four years now. They sort of know what's going on and it really helps when we bring in the younger players. They help out, guide them and help them get through the process. Whether it's talking signs, how we play the game or how we conduct ourselves on and off the field."
Heading into the big tournament where the winner would represent at provincials, Crane says his team really hit their stride and it was needed given the talent they were facing. "One of the things about Zone 4 and I think a lot of people know this, our Zone 4 when it comes to baseball is incredibly strong. You can look at the teams 1-6 that make the Zone tournament and it wouldn't be far fetched for the 6th ranked team to do well. For us to get to the finals even was a great accomplishment. But, we've had a goal right from the beginning, right back in February, our goal was to not just to win Zone, but do well at provincials. Last year, we got to the finals and came up short, so a lot of grade 12's made a goal to push forward. We've made a little check list and we've knocked two things off of it but there's one more big one coming up."
With the first provincial game coming up on Thursday, Crane says the focus is on what his team needs to do to be successful and it's not necessarily anything to do with on the field work. "I think the big thing is, especially for our guys, a lot of them play other baseball, they play AA or AAA within town and our season, to be honest, it's such a crammed season. For our boys, it's about rest, it's not like we need to keep practicing, it's about resting arms or taking time. When you start looking around the province and predicting who might be in the semi's, it really comes down to pitching. Looking back at the Zone tournament, our pitchers, the likes of Jack Friesen, Ryan Peters, Hayden Friesen, our veteran guys were absolute horses on the mound, they were dogs. We're looking for those kind of players to step up for us again when we get to provincials."
Representing the school and the community means a lot to Crane and his players. "I think I can speak for the rest of the coaches, we have a team that's a mix of younger guys and also some veteran guys that understand it's about representation off the field. We want to perform and win games but it's about how you conduct yourself at these events. We want our guys to be a part of the community, we want them helping out younger players. Sometime it's bigger than the game and we wand our players to be good people and I think our boys are doing a great job."
GVC's first game is on Thursday and that'll be followed up by a pair of games on Friday. All games in Stonewall.