Westlock’s Tier 2 and Tier 4 Bantam Wild teams brought home gold medals from their season-ending tournaments June 23. Left photo, front row, L-R: Mason Beattie and Brianna Montgomery. Back row, L-R: Nelson Jespersen, Trent Ewasiw, Carson Ewasiw, Wynton Brandl, Ben Ewasiw, Kale Metzinger, Owen Jespersen, Gage MacLean, Kadin McCoy and Dean McCoy.
Westlock’s two Bantam Wild baseball teams came home from their respective year-end tournaments with gold medals.
The Tier 2 and Tier 4 squads each earned gold medals June 23 following the end of regular season play in the Rural Edmonton Baseball League.
Coach Dean McCoy’s Tier 2 team played in Thorsby, while Gary Petryshen’s Tier 4 team travelled to Daysland.
“Dean’s team was better, but my team was the gutsier team,” says Petryshen. “It was lots of fun this year.”
“We finished the year 7-5 and then went to the Tier 4 final tournament as the No. 1 team. We were expecting to do well,” said Petryshen, who announced to the team at the end of the tourney that this would be his last year of coaching. “It was a more challenging year with us having two bantam teams. Having the talent split made it quite interesting to try to play some games,” he said.
The stakes were high June 23, and some of the parents couldn’t handle being down by two in the final against Edmonton, said Petryshen, but the team pulled out the 10-9 victory.
“Our pitchers came through and pitched well in the final. Four or five had the pitch in the game.”
Earlier that day, they beat Fort Saskatchewan 15-10 in the semifinal.
Petryshen also had several girls on his team this year for the first time. He said he’s never coached girls before, but it was really easy to integrate them on the team.
Jenna Taylor “has her big brother (Carter) playing on the team, that made that one easy. Including Emily (Andrusiak), the boys just accepted her like she was part of the team,” said Petryshen. “To be honest, (Emily) actually hit better than most of them.”
Petryshen is stepping down from coaching the Wild this year. Over the years, he said he has had a lot of fun, but didn’t fail to mention the support of the parents.
“The parents make them into who they are. I just sort of make them into baseball players,” said Petryshen of his role in the kids’ lives.
He started coaching in 2001, and continued until now despite his own kids not playing baseball. So there was no picking favourites, he said.
“Everybody’s all the same to me, … they’re all my kids when we’re on the field.”
“If you could ask my father, I was probably one of the worst baseball players you could find,” said Petryshen.
This turned into an advantage in coaching though, because to hear him say it, he understands the average players and what they’re going through.
“I can help them more to improve their game than I can help someone who has the skill.”
“I didn’t do this for myself. I’ve been doing it for the kids. … I was coaching them for ball, but it was more like I was coaching them for life.”
Front row, L-R: Glen Robinson, Emily Andrusiak, Austin Teske, Gary Petryshen, Chad Wade and Nick Barrett. Back row, L-R: Mike Taylor, Len Tomlinson, Carter Taylor, Ryston Tomlinson, Jenna Taylor and Quinton Courtepatte.
