The Carillon Sultans played strong, fundamental baseball, as well as capitalized on their opponents mistakes, earning themselves a three-game sweep, and putting them back in the Manitoba Junior Baseball League finals.
"We're very happy, obviously," assistant coach Don Meilleur says. "We have a strong team, but there are other strong teams in the MJBL, so it's not a guarantee. Even though we lost four guys from last years team, we knew we had some good players that could replace them. But, there's other good teams, so there's not guarantee that we'd get there, so fact we were able to win the league, get that first round bye, and now get through the finals right away, we're excited to get back into the finals for a second consecutive year."
As a team, the Sultans game is overall very strong, but Meilleur singles out one area of particular strength. "Our bats. We seem to be hitting the ball extremely well. Even our outs, they're hard outs. We're timing pitchers up very well. I like our pitching and our defense, but if I had to shoutout one area, I'd say were really hot at the sticks. I wouldn't want to face our lineup, because 1-9, we can get the bat on the ball no matter where we are. I'm pretty confident going in that we're going to get runs, so we just have to look after the defense and pitching side of things."
Coming off winning the league, Meilleur says the group had some time off thanks to the bye, but it didn't seem to faze the group, which speaks to their mental toughness. "You never know what it's going to be like. Fortunately, the first round series is only a best of three, so we're not off for an extended period of time. But still, the guys that are throwing are not getting reps in, you don't know what the other team is going to be like coming in. We were able to get a nice win right off the bat, hit the ball extremely well in game one, so I think that calmed everyone down. We kept that going in games two and three. You never know, but we handled it well. We have a pretty good group here, they know what it's like. We're pretty confident right now."
Winning the championship last year, one of the things that has stood out to Meilleur about this year is some of the returning guys taking larger leadership roles this season. "It's been good to see. We lost four players that graduated from last years team, and we only have two 2003 born players this year, so in terms of our team, we're relatively young. The guys that were 06's that just joined us this year, they've taken on a big role, the '04's that last year that were maybe not the star players, they've taken on a bigger role. Pretty happy with everybody, the team has really gelled. We're strong, everybody plays a role and does it well. It's really fun to coach. We don't have to do a lot of coaching, the players are really good with that. We're just there to write out the lineup card and not make any mistakes with our changes."
After the latest win, Meilleur and the coaches brought the team together to appreciate what they've done, but understand there is still more to do. "We had a team BBQ (on Sunday) at the head coaches house, just wanted to get together, celebrate the fact we won the semi's, but also realize it was a subdued celebration. The job is not done. We wanted to get together, celebrate, but the guys understand we still have one more step. We'd like to get together one more time at the end of the year and have a real party."
When it comes to when the finals are expected to start, Meilleur says it became more clear based off the other series continuing. "They're slated to start Friday. There could have been some question of that had the other series ended (Sunday). The league could have decided to move it up, but with game four between Elmwood and Pembina Valley going on Tuesday, I'd expect game one (of the finals) will remain on Friday, in Steinbach. Game two would be Sunday at our opponents park. We'll see what happens, we will still watch the other series and see how that goes, but we're tentatively setting up for Friday."
A few days off is great for the players and Meilleur says the coaches plan to have things set early, so the players can be ready. "I think what we'll do is we'll put our lineup together, regardless who we play. We'll have our pitchers set on who's going to start, so the players know. I doubt we'll deviate depending who the opponent is. We're in a position now that we're confident in our guys, and we'll setup our lineup the way we want. We'll let other teams dictate around us, and not the other way around. We'll let the guys know when they're playing, who's starting, who's going to go where. They're a veteran group, they know what to do when the time comes, so we don't have to do to much with them."
The Carillon Sultans, looking to repeat as MJBL champions, look to start on Friday in Steinbach vs either Elmwood or Pembina Valley. That series is 2-1 for Elmwood heading into game four of the best of five on Tuesday night in Pembina Valley.