18U AAA Sultans hot heading into provincials

What a difference a month can make in the Manitoba minor baseball season.

The 18U Carillon Sultans have completely reversed their fortunes, turning an 0-6 start into a 16-10 record as the team easily qualified for the top tier of the provincial championships.

“We feel good about our team,” head coach Burke Heide said after a 5-0 win over North Winnipeg July 16.

“The team just settled in really nicely. It can be hard at the start of the season to hit sometimes, and we just really found our stride at the plate. Our offense has been fantastic, and our pitchers really came around.”

The win over North Winnipeg was a solid result for a team full of players from the Steinbach Regional high school team, which lost to Garden City in the provincial final. Many players on North Winnipeg also play for Garden City.

Having locked up a spot in the top tier at provincials, Heide has been working to get his pitchers as much work as possible, with three different players taking to the mound after short stints against North Winnipeg.

In a weekend 18U tournament, managing strict pitch-counts is a key role for managers.

“We feel really good about (our rotation),” Heide said.

“We feel like we’ve got a lot of depth, we’ve got a lot of different pitchers who can fill different roles. We feel pretty confident in the guys we want to start games in provincials, but we also feel like we’ve got enough depth once that starter is out of pitches, we’re comfortable with most of our guys relieving games.”

The top six teams in the province make the 18U AAA provincials, and the top two teams after a round robin play in the finals for the chance to win the province and represent Manitoba at nationals.

With the short format, there’s little margin for error.

“If you fall behind if you have a bad game, you have to move on, you can’t dwell on it or you’ll be out of it early,” Heide said.

“I think we’ve rebounded really well and we can compete with any team in this league.”

Provincials are taking place at Charleswood Place in Winnipeg once again, with Carillon playing games at 11 and 2 p.m. Friday. The finals will be at 5 p.m. July 27. In addition to nationals, the Western Canada 18U AAA championships will be in Elmwood this year.

The U15 and U13 AAA finals are in West Winnipeg Aug. 1-3.

In the AA ranks, Carillon’s team struck gold at provincials, defeating South Central 4-3 to claim the banner.