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Baseball in Nickolet's blood

She's played hockey with the boys in Mackenzie since she was four. She also plays high school volleyball with the Mackenzie Sabres junior team. But during the summer months, there's no competition as to what sport she likes best.
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She's played hockey with the boys in Mackenzie since she was four.

She also plays high school volleyball with the Mackenzie Sabres junior team.

But during the summer months, there's no competition as to what sport she likes best. For 15-year-old Jayan Nickolet, baseball is king.

It doesn't matter that she has to travel two hours down the highway from Mackenzie to play with the Prince George bantam Knights - the only female on the roster. There are no baseball rep teams in Mackenzie and she simply has no choice.

She also doesn't mind that her other baseball team, the B.C. girls 16-and-under selects, are based in the Lower Mainland. Whatever it takes to play at the national championship.

"It's hard work but I love it," she said. "I love hitting."

The Knights are playing this weekend at the Baseball B.C. bantam double-A provincial championship which starts today in Ridge Meadows. For the Knights, it's the second of back-to-back provincial tournaments. They just finished taking a crack at the B.C. Minor Baseball bantam title last weekend in Burnaby.

"Our goal is to win it and then we can go to Westerns in St. Albert," Nickolet said of this weekend's tournament. "I have confidence in our team."

Last weekend, the Knights went 3-1 in round-robin play to finish in a three-way tie atop the Pool A standings, then were eliminated in their fifth game - a 7-6 nine-inning loss to Cowichan Valley in a tiebreaker

Nickolet played in two of the Knights' five games at third base and struck out just once in the tournament. Knights assistant coach Russell Pratt says she sets an example for all the boys on the team to follow, always ready when called upon to play in any situation.

"Jayan is the definition of a solid ball player," said Pratt. "She does everything so well technically. Her throwing, her hitting, it's all textbook mechanics. She's not one you have to tell twice to hustle. On and off the field, it's always 100 per cent.

"She doesn't play a lot with us - just not quite as fast or strong as the boys - but she's very, very solid. She pitches for us, plays third base and can hit the ball farther than a lot of the guys on our team.

"She's a bit of a quiet kid so there's a little bit of a divide but she fits in pretty well," he added. "She's a great kid."

As the only female player on the bantam Knights, that can lead to awkward moments but Nickolet is used to it, having played on boys teams throughout her sporting career.

"It's better competition and I fit in with them," she said. "I feel like I get along with the boys team better. We don't have girls teams (in Mackenzie), I'm used to always playing on boys teams and I'm fine with it.

"The boys, they swear and say whatnot, the girls are just more ladylike. I can be myself more around girls - we bond more together and are more comfortable with each other."

Jayan's brother Ajay is a shortstop/pitcher for the Lomak midget Knights, who will be hosting the double-A provincial championship next weekend at Citizen Field and Rotary Park. She looks up to her 14-months-older brother as her baseball mentor.

"I think it's really cool that he's able to play infield when he's the youngest of the group and he is doing really well at it," said Jayan, who started commuting to Prince George to play baseball two years ago. "He's a great pitcher and I learned from him and my dad (Jade), who grew up playing baseball all his life.

"We had a small girls team (in Mackenzie) when I was four or five but once the mills went down everything quit. There is a baseball league here now but there's only one or two teams."

Last year, as captain of the provincial 14-and-under selects, Nickolet led B.C. to the gold medal at the Western Canadian championships in Yorkton, Sask. She got picked up by the 16U team to represent B.C. in the eight-team Canadian championship in Saguenay, Que., where they finished sixth. She played in every inning of each game and finished with the 29th best batting average in a tournament with 150 players.

"That was really fun," said Nickolet, who shared the B.C. Minor Baseball Association's rookie-of-the-year award in 2015 with her friend and teammate, Allison Schroder of Fruitvale. "I got to play a lot and I pitched quite a bit. I've been playing well and I've improved lots with my pitching."

Nickolet says she wants to take baseball as far as she can, continuing to progress to the 21U level and the NCAA. She's hoping that will lead to a spot on the national women's team to play internationally, following in the footsteps of Prince George pitcher Amanda Asay, a three-sport athlete at Brown University.

Following this weekend's bantam boys tournament, Nickolet will remain in the Lower Mainland to play girls league games and practice with the provincial team before they head to Vaughan, Ont., for the national tournament, Aug. 18-22.