The Westlock Minor Ball Association (WMBA) wrapped up registrations last week, bringing with it a midget boys baseball team for the first time in several years.
“We’re pretty happy about that,” said WMBA president Al Lyslo. “It’s been about eight or nine years since we’ve had one.”
As of the March 31 registration cut off, the association has 150 boys and girls, a bit of a drop from last year’s 174 total.
“Our boys numbers are up, I believe, in baseball,” he said. “I think our girls numbers our down a little bit this year. There were some other activities going on, like dance and what not.”
This season, Westlock Minor Ball will have one bantam girls team, two bantam boys, two pee wee girls and three pee wee boys, one squirts, two mosquito, a junior and a senior rookie team.
“We didn’t have quite enough t-ballers to make a team for them so we’ll probably move them to junior rookie,” he noted.
Although the club is good with umpires, Lyslo said the club is in need of coaches for the teams.
“Midget boys team, we’re kind of scrambling to find someone there,” he said. “I’ve been approaching some of the Red Lions, Grey Lions, people with experience, because then hopefully these kids will move up to Red Lions in the next year or two. We’re working on that.”
The season runs from the beginning of May to the end of June, so if a person would like to become a coach for Westlock Minor Ball, the association will pay for them to attend coaching clinics in Edmonton.
“That’s actually how I got started,” Lyslo added.
Conditioning camps start in the second week of April at the Rotary Spirit Centre. Lyslo said once the curling ice is out, the rink will be converted into indoor batting cages.
“Hopefully if the weather co-operates, we can be outside more. It’s a lot better to be out on the diamonds than in the curling rink, but it’s useful.”
The Westlock Wild are in the Pembina/Sturgeon Baseball/Softball League along with Athabasca, Barrhead, Dapp, Clyde, Jarvie, Fawcett and Legal.
Lyslo said the Legal girls teams are looking to join the Northwest Zone in Edmonton to get in more games, so Westlock Minor Ball might be considering the same move next year if the parents are on board.
The boys play homes games Mondays and Wednesdays and exhibition games Fridays and Saturdays. Girls play Tuesday and Thursdays.
“I’ve been talking to some coaches of others teams and I’ve been trying to get some exhibition games here for the weekend (for the girls), but we’ll have to see how that goes as well.”
With that being said, the girls will be playing in a handful of tournaments, with a few teams heading to provincials in July.
As for the boys teams, he spoke with some coaches who are trying to get them involved in more competitive games later on in the summer, but that’s up in the air for now.
Peewee and Bantams step up to bat at 7 p.m. and the younger teams start at 6:30 p.m. at the diamonds.
