They play no home games.
Their closest opponent is in Kamloops, a six-hour drive away.
And the cold-weather climate they've grown up with in Prince George was about a month late losing its icy grip on the city, keeping the fields closed until mid-May.
The hurdles of climate, geography and demographics are a fact of life for many Prince George sports teams but they've proven no barrier to the Prince George LTN Contracting bantam Knights baseball team.
Through 14 games the double-A Knights sport a sparkling 9-4-1 record and all of their games so far have been in Kamloops tournaments against mostly triple-A teams. This weekend they'll be in Kelowna to play their double-A provincial peers in the three-day Valley of the Champions tournament.
"It's a double-A tournament and we get to use metal bats and it's going to be fun," said Knights 14-year-old first baseman Noah Lank. "Metal has a lot more pop. So if you hit it 80 feet with wood you hit 110 or 130 with metal.
"We're a good ball club - we're a small town but we're putting out a good team. We're showing up the triple-A teams and have made it into semis a couple of times. We've been playing with each other since we were six or seven and we have that advantage over all the other teams. We do a lot of practicing, there's not much else we can do, and we try to get to as many tournaments as we can."
The Knights have a balance of six first-year bantams and eight second-year players. Coach Curtis Sawchuk said the strength of his team is a testament to the resurgent interest in kids wanting to join the Prince George Youth Baseball Association. The league has wait lists for players in the younger divisions for its house leagues and there's a shortage of fields in the city to try to accommodate them.
"We have a young talented group and I think we're finally seeing in the (PGYBA) a lot more kids playing baseball," said Sawchuk, who has Doug Clark and Justin Fillion helping him coach the Knights.
"You had the success of the (Toronto) Blue Jays a couple years ago when these kids were peewees wanting to play baseball and now they're actually getting into the age group where they can get somewhere after (minor) baseball and they're seeing that baseball can take them to a school or pay for an education if they continue to play a little longer than high school in Prince George."
To try to counter the long stretch from season to season where they can't play on Prince George fields, the Knights began working out indoors in January at UNBC at the Northern Sport Centre. They can use a batting cage, get their throwing arms in shape, practice base running and work out game strategies so they aren't starting from scratch when they finally do get outdoors in the spring.
Sawchuk said the new Northern Baseball Academy taught by former college players Brandon Hunter, Doug Clark and Chris Clark and the winter camps they hosted gave his players a headstart on the season.
"It just helps if kids have the opportunity to play baseball year-round and have instruction throughout the year," he said. "If they have bad habits we're breaking them instead of every year going through the same motions and making the same mistakes and not be able to fix them because we only have two months of the year with the kids."
Sawchuk played college baseball a few years ago as a left-handed pitcher in Missouri and Texas and Lank says he's corrected a few bad habits that have made him a better pitcher.
"My wind-up was not good coming into the season and he completely changed it," said Lank. "My pitching's improved a lot, I feel a lot better."
Batting and pitching have carried the Knights this season but fielding has been their downfall. Nine of the 14 Knights can pitch and their team earned-run average is 2.3, backed by a team batting average of .313 through 14 games. What's hurt them in their four losses has been their defence. They've allowed 71 runs, an average 5.07 per game, and 38 of those runs have been unearned. Collectively, the Knights have made 37 errors, an average 2.64 per game.
It's no mystery why they've had trouble with their gloves. The Knights don't play in a rep team league and they don't get themselves in game situations under pressure often enough to sharpen their skills and gain the confidence they need to keep teams from taking advantage.
"They have to do a house league, which takes away from practice, and repetition is what you need," said Sawchuk. "It's a game of practicing. Coming into the summer, with more practice time, we'll be able to clean things up."
The Knights have eight players hitting .300 or better. Leigh Peebles leads the team with a .400 bating average and first-year bantam Logan Dreher isn't far off, hitting .389. Cleanup hitter Jacob Ross is next in line (.387), followed by first-year Preston Weightman (.379), Zach Fillion (.371), Brendan Gaboury (.371), Grady Goyer (.318), and Luka Kim (.300).
Ross has emerged as the ace of the Knights' pitching staff. The six-foot-one 15-year-old right-hander uses his length and his size 14 feet to put whip into his pitches. Through 22 innings he sports a stingy .984 ERA with a team-leading 26 strikeouts.
"I'm having lots of fun - we have a great team here, well-rounded and we're smashing balls around," said Ross. "We just have to do a bit of work on defence. We've had a lot of unearned runs scored and we just have to help out our pitchers, knock the ball down and make the plays.
"We were 2-1-1 (two weekends ago at the Sussex triple-A tournament in Kamloops) and we're keeping up with these top-level teams. Going into these double-A tournaments we should dominate. It's looking good for us."
Chase Martin, Adam Hart, and Jacob Fillion are the other bantam double-A Knights players.
The Knights will represent Zone 8 at the B.C. Summer Games in Duncan and Ladysmith, July 20-22 - the first time in several years a northern zone team has been part of the Games. Each team is guaranteed two games in each of the first two days with playoffs to follow on Saturday, July 21 and the medal games on July 22.
"It's going to be kids that are the highest calibre of their age group, kids that are playing (Premier Baseball League) and these kids will see what it takes to get to that level," said Sawchuk. "It might shock them a little, we might be a bit star-struck but I think it's good experience-wise to bring these kids so they understand how much work you've got to put in to get to the next level."
The Knights are entered in two 15-and-under provincial championships - BC Minor Baseball Association and Baseball BC. If the Knights win the BC Minor title they'll qualify for a regional championship in San Diego, Calif., Aug. 9-13. If they don't win they'll play the Baseball BC finals and then go to a Western Canadian Invitational championship in Manitoba.
