Their short season is already in full swing and this week the Mount Baker Secondary School Wild baseball team will play their first games on their home field.
After a long winter trapped indoors, the Wild kicked off the year on the weekend of April 14 with a doubleheader against J.L. Crowe Secondary in Trail and then attended a tournament in Trail this past weekend. On Tuesday, the Wild host Kimberley’s Selkirk Secondary and Nelson’s L.V. Rogers Secondary and then begin a home tourney on Thursday.
Taking place at Confederation Park starting on April 26, Mount Baker will welcome the Calgary Redbirds, the Cardston Cougars, J.L Crowe, Selkirk and Kate Andrews Secondary of Coaldale, Alberta.
According to head coach Shawn Jensen, who is in his sixth season leading the Wild, the team has had a positive start to their season despite having had limited training time. While MBSS lost their first game 10-1, they followed it up with a 12-5 win over Trail’s squad. Last weekend, they went 2-2 against Trail and Kelowna’s Mount Boucherie Secondary.
“Overall the team played really well considering it was our first time outside,” Jensen said. “We made sure we used a lot of pitchers to get them loosened up and everything and moved guys around to different positions. Otherwise, they played really well and hit the ball well.”
Although following their home tournament, the team wraps up their season in Medicine Hat from May 4 to 5, Jensen still hopes to see growth from his players throughout their short campaign. As a majority of the players will continue their season’s with the American Legion Cranbrook Bandits, the Wild serves as good training time.
“We are kind of like a really good spring training for those players,” Jensen said. “We like to see improvements from when we get into the gym [to] their throwing, their hitting, their baseball mentality…we like to see everything improve.
“It is [also] competitive, so we want to win [and] usually do really quite well.”
Overlapping slightly with the Wild, the Bandits schedule begins on Monday, April 30 with tryouts and the first tournament for the ‘A’ team will be in Libby from May 12 to 13 in Libby, Montana. The ‘B’ team, meanwhile, will kick off their season that same weekend in Polson, Montana.
Tuesday’s Mount Baker Wild exhibition action features a game against L.V. Rogers at 12 p.m. and Selkirk at 5 p.m. L.V. Rogers and Selkirk play each other at 2:30 p.m.
Cranbrook Mount Baker Wild 2018 Invitational Tournament Schedule
Thursday, April 26
5 p.m. — Mt. Baker vs. Cardston
Friday, April 27
9 a.m. — Mt. Baker vs. Selkirk
11:15 a.m. — Calgary vs. Kate Andrews
1:30 p.m. — J.L. Crowe vs. Selkirk
3:45 p.m. — Kate Andrews vs. Cardston
6:00 p.m. — Calgary vs. J.L. Crowe
Saturday, April 28
8 a.m. — 5th place vs. 6th place
10:15 a.m. — 2nd place vs. 3rd place
12:30 a.m. — Bronze medal game
2:45 p.m. — Championship game