Senior Sultans hoping season ends with a championship

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This article was published 20/06/2023 (702 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After coming up just short in the Winnipeg Senior Baseball League (WSBL) finals last season, the Carillon Sultans are aiming high in 2023.

The team has gotten off to a solid start in the WSBL, sitting third in the league standings, only behind the North Winnipeg Pirates and West Winnipeg A’s, who both boast undefeated records so far.

Two of the Sultans three losses this season have come at the hands of the A’s, a 13-4 defeat May 25 and a 10-4 loss June 6.

Nick Wall is coaching the Carillon senior team this year.

“Right now our guys are looking really good,” he said after a 10-3 win over the Elmwood Giants June 12.

“We’re hitting the ball really well. We had a couple games where we made a couple errors, had a couple bad innings, but we’re still hitting the ball really well. We had 10 hits in a loss, so you can’t complain about that.”
Those problems in the field weren’t apparent during the victory over Elmwood, as the Sultans infield looked sharp, including turning a couple double plays.

“Today we actually had probably everyone we’ll have coming out for playoffs,” Wall said, noting he had to play inexperienced infielders earlier this season.

“We had our full team today, which was exciting.”

The senior team is also enjoying a fully healthy Zach Giesbrecht this season. He wasn’t able to take to the mound much last year, playing 1st or 3rd base for both the senior and junior Sultans. Now aged out of the junior ranks, Giesbrecht is eating up innings on the mound, showing off his strong arm.

Giesbrecht got the nod to start against Elmwood, putting up a strong effort to go deep into the game.

The Sultans will next play at home June 20 when they host the Stonewall Blue Jays. The Blue Jays were the team that ended Carillon’s playoff run last year, which was a bitter pill to swallow for the Sultans, especially after taking a 9-1 lead early in the decisive game four.

“We want to win,” Wall said.

The Springfield Senior Braves are sitting in fifth place in the league standings, with a 2-3 record, while the Pembina Phillies, which play out of Ile des Chenes, are ninth in the ten-team loop, which is split into two tiers come playoff time.