Much to everyone's surprise the Prince George IDL Midget Knights repeated as B.C. double-A baseball champions in Duncan during the long weekend.
Troy Waldie, father of Cole, one of four players from last year's provincial championship team remaining with the Knights, said it was a stunning victory.
"It's unexpected," said Waldie. "No one saw this one coming."
In 2012 the Knights were the favourites to take the provincial championship on home turf, so it was no surprise when they celebrated their victory on Citizen Field.
This year the Knights dumped the host Duncan team in the championship game 13-3 on Sunday after going 3-1 during the round robin. In the semifinal, the Knights out hit the Ladner Red Sox 18-11. But the tournament didn't start out so promising.
In their opening game, the Knights lost 14-4 and it could've been worse if not for the mercy rule, said head coach Randy Potskin.
"We got mercied our play was so bad," said Potskin. "The only good thing is we saved our pitching."
It was a different team on the field for the Knights' second game as they scored 22 runs to start their five-game win streak.
"Our confidence just grew with each win," said Potskin. "The hitting was great throughout the tournament and easy to coach, telling them to just swing away."
The Knights popped 13 home runs in the tournament as a team, while Jayden Heer, Jackson Belanger, Lane Desjarlais and Bryan Allbee all had their first home runs of their midget careers. Belanger actually sent two balls flying over the fence. Nicholas Potskin had his first four homers as a midget, while his cousin Tre Potskin also tallied four long balls.
"It was nice to see the look in the kids eyes when the ball went over the wall," said Potskin.
Besides Cole Waldie, the other returning players from the 2012 championship Knights team were Tre and Nicholas Potskin and Mark Moser.
Coach Potskin said both titles are special in their own way.
"It's always sweet in front of the home crowd," said Potskin. "This year we just wanted to have fun. Our win shows the nonbelievers that we can do anything we just have to believe in ourselves."
The midget Knights had a tough start to the 2013 season, going winless at triple-A tournaments in Edmonton and Kamloops, while posting a 1-17 record in the Prince George Senior Baseball League. But, Potskin said playing against high-calibre triple-A talent and against men helped the team pull together when they needed to. Three weeks ago things started gelling as the Knights won a tournament in Kelowna.
"I told the boys that they won't see any pitches they haven't seen yet," said Potskin.
The Knights will represent B.C. at the Western Canadian Midget Baseball Championship, Aug. 15-18 in Swift Current, Sask. Last year, the Knights struggled to a 1-3 record at the tournament in Morden, Man., and, Potskin said he hopes the lessons learned will help this year's team bring back the trophy to Prince George.
