Last all-star season, the Mosquito Knights won a single game. This year, the Prince George Youth Baseball Association team is challenging for tournament titles.
The Knights, formed by the top 10- and 11-year-olds in the city, have made tremendous progress and will look to continue along that path at the Valley of Champions tournament, which runs today through Sunday in Kelowna.
"The amount of drive that these kids have put into their ball-playing, their personal skill level and commitment to the team is just beautiful - it's awesome," said manager Darren Heggelund, whose club competes at the triple-A level. "The majority of the players are the same as last year and we have three new players this year."
The newcomers are Matt Hart, Garrett Feeney and Mitchal Heggelund and they are fitting in well with the returnees - Nolan Peterson, Krystien Aldana, Adam Leslie, Nolan Cousins, Noah Pears, Thorne Fox, Aidan Heggelund, Levi Knezevic, Jacob Mclean and Bevin Williams.
Two of the strengths of the team are pitching and defence, which, in baseball, is always a key to success.
Pitchers include Peterson, Aldana, Leslie, Cousins and Pears. Together, they give the Knights the necessary depth to stay within the strict pitch-count rules in the mosquito division. In tournament play, a pitcher can only throw on two consecutive days if he has tossed no more than 25 pitches on the first day. If he has thrown 26 to 40 pitches, he must rest for two days, and the wait times increase from there. In a single day, no pitcher is permitted to deliver to home plate more than 75 times and that would have to be followed by a five-day rest.
As per the team strategy, Knights pitchers try to keep the ball in the strike zone and let the players behind them record the outs.
"We really want our defensive players to pick up the hits then make the plays," said Darren Heggelund.
In their most recent tournament a couple weekends ago in Kamloops, the Knights followed their game plan to near perfection and came home with silver medals. In the championship final, they had an 8-3 lead against the Parkland Twins of Sherwood Park, Alta., but the Twins battled back for a 9-8 victory.
At the same event, the Knights beat the Vernon Canadians 11-6, downed the Central Okanagan Sun Devils of Kelowna 7-5, fell 14-8 to the Red Deer Braves and, in the playoff semifinal round, dumped the Kamloops RiverDogs 11-4. Offensively, some of their key hitters were Hart, Mitchal Heggelund, Peterson, Leslie and Cousins.
The Knights will see some of the same teams at the Valley of Champions and have set a goal of playing in Sunday's final. Later this season - from Aug. 3-6 - they'll be in Cloverdale for their age group's provincial championship tournament.
In Kelowna this weekend the Knights will be in familiar company because four other Prince George all-star teams will also compete for titles. Local clubs are also registered in the peewee single-A, peewee triple-A, bantam double-A and midget divisions.
