Minor Bantam AAA Hawks search for elusive Baseball Ontario title

Even in a dream season in 2015 not everything dropped into the gloves of the peewee Newmarket Hawks.

The team had, after all, won the Baseball Ontario Eliminations provincial playdown tournament to secure a berth to the Canadian championships, ultimately placing fifth in the country. Then there was the CNE tournament crown, another coveted victory for the squad of 11 and 12 year olds.

One can hardly blame the youngsters if they’d been a little battle weary by Labour Day 2015 weekend and beyond 70 games played. Not terribly surprisingly, the Hawks exited early from the triple-A championships in Vaughan.

Together, however, the aforementioned titles would be quite enough to cement the Hawks’ status as the premier peewee baseball team in Ontario. A triple crown would have provided a nice finishing touch.

It is confusing, even redundant, that a Baseball Ontario tournament championship tournament is contested barely four weeks after a Baseball Ontario provincial championship leading to a national tournament has been declared.

Flip the calendar pages ahead by 12 months and the now minor bantam Hawks are among the favourites at the 12-team triple-A championship tournament starting Friday at Connorvale Park in Etobicoke. With no Elims or CNE, it is the only title up for grabs to minor bantams this season among triple-A teams.

“It just seemed kind of less important last year,” said Hawks’ field manager Doug Lunney, whose team qualified out of the York Simcoe Baseball Association in a tournament at Vaughan in early August. “This year it is the big thing to play for. The kids seemed almost overkilled (in 2015), but this year they’ve been eyeing OBAs all season.

“We still wanted to win last year, but we just didn’t have our best bats in the final tournament.”

A season for the ages is never easy to match up against. However, the Hawks have been on their game in finishing atop their regular season standings in the Toronto-York Simcoe interlocking league with an 18-4-2 record. They have been to three tournament finals, winning once, in Aurora.

“It’s definitely been hard to top the excitement part, that’s for sure,” said Lunney. “This year has been a little more normal, but we have had to learn to pitch on mounds and hit with wood bats.

“I think we adjusted quite well to most things. It’s been a struggle for a lot of the kids, but you learn new ways to get on base, score runs and just play the game.”