Eathan Abraham was the weekend hero for the Big Guy Lake Junior Blazers.
He played a vital role in delivering his team to its first-ever victories on the fastball diamond at Spruce City Stadium.
The Blazers were trailing the Burns Lake Bandits 7-6 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning Friday night when Abraham took a Branden Alec pitch for a ride, with Craig Budskin and Jeremy Gervais already on base. Abraham's two-run single ended the game.
"He threw me a dipper but I got underneath it just in time to get it done," said the 15-year-old Abraham.
In an error-filled seven-inning rematch on Saturday, the Blazers won 22-17, and Abraham's bat was again a factor. He hit four doubles, walked once and scored four runs. The Blazers scored six runs in the sixth inning to give pitcher Brydon Lessard some breathing room.
"That was really intense out there, I liked it," said Abraham. We're all starting to see each other as good buddies on the team now, we're all coming together and getting into it. Hopefully soon we'll all be one big family."
Lessard pitched all eight innings for the Blazers on Friday and took over for Abraham after 2 2/3 innings on Saturday and finished the game. Seeing what looked like a football score on the Spruce City Stadium scoreboard Saturday, Blazers head coach Darrell Gervais says he's not too worried about his players making fielding mistakes like they did. They've got at least two months to work out the bugs before they compete in the locally-hosted Canadian Native Fastball Championships.
"It's early in the season for these guys, and we've got a lot of work to do on defence but we're happy the hitting's coming," he said. "Our defence is going to get a lot better and the errors will be less and the runs will be less. We started Eathan and we didn't give him much help."
The Blazers roster includes four hockey players who played for the major midget Cariboo Cougars - Jeremy Gervais, Jarin Sutton, Devin Sutton and Joel Patsey - and one, Brevin Gervais, who skated for the Tier 1 midget Coast Inn of the North Cougars. Four of the Blazers - Jerricko Prince, Austin Haugen, Abraham and Lessard - played midget C fastball last year for the Prince George Timberwolves team which finished third at provincials. Four of the Blazers team members, including Patsey, have never played fastball before. Jeremy Frame, Braedan Chadwell and Nolan Williams also play for the Blazers.
"It's going to be a work in progress but by the end of the season we're going to be a sharp-looking team out there," said coach Gervais. "They played two games last week in the men's league and they were in tough, but it's going to get better.
"We just have to get them to focus on the baseball part of it and not think it's just batting and getting up there to swing at the ball. We need to start right from scratch with the fundamentals with these guys. They're a good group of kids, willing to learn, so I think it will be easy for us as coaches to figure it out. We will improve."
The Junior Blazers play against men's teams in the Spruce City Men's Fastball Association and started the season with losses to Falcon Contracting and the Vanderhoof Rippers. The Blazers will likely challenge for the provincial junior B title and are one of the junior teams entered in the native nationals, July 29 to Aug. 1 at Spruce City Stadium.
"They're more experienced in the men's league and a lot of them can throw harder but just playing in their league is just a better experience for us and it gives us an advantage on kids our age," said Patsey.
Patsey is from Hazelton and knows some of the history of Prince George hosting native national tournaments from watching his uncle, Brian Moore, coach teams at that level.
"Just thinking about it gets me excited," said Patsey, who went 1-for-4 on Saturday and hit two singles on Friday. "Coming into the season, knowing it's going to be held in Prince George makes me want to work hard to get better before it."
Patsey, who turned 17 on Monday, hasn't played fastball but said he couldn't pass up a chance to be around his Cariboo Cougar teammates on the field.
"I was a little hesitant to come and play but as soon as I knew some of my friends were on the team it was an easy decision to come and play," he said.
