This upcoming weekend was originally scheduled as their home tournament, but the Cranbrook Bandits will instead only have one visitor.
The Calgary PBF Redbirds U18 team will be paying a visit to Confederation Park on Saturday and Sunday, to play four exhibition games against the Senior ‘A’ and Junior ‘B’ Bandits. With two weekends under their belts, the Seniors have a 4-3 record overall and the Juniors are 5-3.
According to Junior head coach Robin King, the chance to play the Redbirds and watch their higher division teammates should be an excellent opportunity for growth.
“This year we’ve been doing a lot of joint practices with the juniors and the seniors [and] it’s benefitting our junior guys to see how disciplined mentally and physically these older guys [are],” King said. “It gives [our] guys something to look up to [and] I’m excited now that they’re going to get a chance to see them in a game situation [to] see how they execute.”
The Senior Bandits have met the Redbirds once this season, during their opening tournament in Libby, Montana and lost 8-2. While the ‘A’ team coach Paul Mrazek, knows that the Redbirds are a solid team, he has confidence in his group.
“They’re a tough team and it all comes down to pitching and defence,” he said. “If we keep them off the bases, keep the runs down, we’ll be able to compete with anybody.”
Saturday’s games are at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., while Sunday’s outings are 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. The same Redbirds squad will play both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams but with Calgary using younger pitchers while facing the Junior side.