(Submitted photo/Mike Yeager)

By Ben Tompkins

Sask Baseball Awards

U15 AAA East Central Dodgers named Minor Team of the Year

Dec 22, 2021 | 4:12 PM

Sask Baseball recently handed out all of their yearly awards and one local team was deemed the Minor Team of the Year.

The U15 AAA East Central Dodgers won the award after having won both their league title and provincial championship this season.

In their first year of existence, the group brought boys from Muenster, Humboldt, Lanigan, Bruno, Annaheim and Lake Lenore to form the team.

The Dodgers took part in the Saskatoon U15 AAA League where they had a regular-season record of 16-8-1, good enough for second place. They then ran the table in playoffs with four wins in a row defeating the Saskatoon Expos in the final.

The team played in one tournament all year (Evan Thomas in Saskatoon), where they went 5-1 with their only loss coming in the final to the Saskatoon Brewers.

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East Central would go on to face those same Brewers, later in the year in Regina, at the Provincial Championships. The group had a record of 5-1 in the round robin, before winning two straight in the playoffs where they walked off the Brewers for the provincial title.

(Submitted photo/Mike Yeager)

Head Coach Mike Yeager told northeastnow it was a pretty satisfying feeling to cap off 2021 with this award.

“Looking back on it now, it was a really good season for the boys and it worked out to some recognition at the end,” he said. “Just talking to some of the boys, they were pretty pumped that they were named Team of the Year. A couple of them didn’t even know it was handed out, so it was a good surprise to say the least.”

Yeager also said he was quite happy with how the season turned out and knows there’s lots to build on for the future.

“From a coach’s perspective, just sitting back and watching how the boys moved along throughout the year, it was a pretty good progression and really satisfying to see the boys get as much success as they did,” he said.

“There was always potential and the idea that we had a strong group. That kind of set the table…Hopefully, it makes it easy for everyone to get on board and have all the boys come together, knowing there’s the potential to have success every year. As long as the players and coaches are here, there are options and opportunities to play at a high level and have success. We hope that continues.”

And Yeager also mentioned how nice it was to represent the small communities from northeast Saskatchewan and the kinds of people that live there.

“Our depth showed, they were willing to learn and their competitiveness didn’t let up. They had enough left in the tank and they weren’t going to be denied. They battled, they worked hard and I give them a lot of credit.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @BenTompkins_8