CANMORE – The Bow Valley Blues’ bats have been deadly for pitchers to start a promising season that has playoff run written all over it.
The local baseball team, which is made up of players aged 17-19, let its potent offence power to back-to-back victories last weekend (June 1-2) at Canmore’s Millennium Park, defeating Calgary North 1, 7-6, and Calgary North 2, 12-2, respectively.
The dual victories and first home games of the season improved the red-hot Blues’ overall record to 4-1 in the Calgary North Baseball League, and after five games, Blues head coach Luke Gauvreau said first priority is to win.
“I’d like to see a little bit stronger defence from us,” he said. “I don’t care so much about the offence as long as we win games, but I’d definitely like to see the defence pick up a little bit. It’s just work in progress, it always is, and with baseball you have to be OK with failure ... and from there you work your way up, but luckily we haven’t been on the failure side too much.”
On Sunday, the Blues’ bomb squad was swinging with force and precision against the Calgary North 2 team.
Torin Young drove in four runners in the game, including three from a triple in the third inning to break the game wide open.
“The first couple innings we were kind of letting our pitcher down on the defensive end and so I just wanted to rally the guys and we needed to get up there and get some runs,” Young said. “I had something to work with and the boys got on base and I was lucky enough to hit them all around.”
It capped off a seven-run inning for the Blues to give pitcher Matthew Arsenault plenty to work with.
On the mound, Arsenault was throwing heat and struck out eight batters in five innings.
“I only threw fast balls today, I was just hitting my spots,” Arsenault said. “I was just trying to throw strikes, and I got a good infield behind me.”
So far the team’s offensive had been thriving, as the Blues has outscored opponents 41-18 in wins.
The Blues’ thriving offence has been a bit surprising to first year coach Gauvreau.
“It’s hard to tell when you’re hitting in batting practice or off a tee, but once you get behind a live pitch it’s a totally different ball game,” Gauvreau said. “The key thing is getting base runners on and working from there. You can’t score runs with a runner.”
The next home games are June 15-16 at Millennium Park in Canmore as the Blues take on Calgary North 3 and High River, respectively. First pitch is at noon in both games.
