On the same day that tryouts for the 2020 Sudbury Voyageurs 16U and 18U baseball teams were taking place, Brodie Jeffrey was putting a final synopsis on his summer of 2019, days after the younger edition of the two completed a three game sweep over the visiting Burlington Bulls.
"It was nice to see the boys finally pitch, hit and play defense, all in the same game," said Jeffrey, head coach of the 16U Voyageurs. "I've been waiting for that all summer, so this was a nice finish to a season that had its ups and downs."
Victories by scores of 5-2, 12-1 and 6-2 allowed the Sudbury crew to wrap up the summer with a regular season mark of 8-12, as Jeffrey utilized his complete arsenal of pitchers over the weekend, limiting all hurlers to just two or three innings apiece.
While just five runs against would imply that all pitched well, Jeffrey highlighted the continued dominance of Yanick Loiselle, with Jaxen Lehr also finishing strong. "He threw a lot of strikes, and I've been preaching that all year," said Jeffrey of Lehr.
"At 16U, if you can throw strikes, you give us a good chance to win. With everybody going two innings, it kind of worked because the hitters were not seeing the same pitcher on back to back at bats."
Offensively, Jeffrey again noted a mix, ranging from one particular sparkplug at the plate, to the type of balanced approach that so often leads to success. "Jacob Larivière had an outstanding weekend," he said.
"He kind of caught fire in Indiana and let it carry on to the end, which is good, setting him up for 18U. But everyone kind of contributed in a different way. We stole more than 15 bases on the weekend, so those singles would soon turn into triples, and then a single would score one, then the same thing would happen again."
"We had a couple of innings with three or four runs, but I think it was more a lead-off walk, a stolen base, and then we're in position as a scoring threat again," added Jeffrey. Though there is clearly merit in league play, much of the focus for players and coaching staff alike lies in the various tournaments which the Voyageurs will attend, opportunities to catch the eyes of scouts south of the border.
"This was our third summer, so by now, we have an idea about where we fit," noted Jeffrey, discussing the need to find appropriate caliber competition, opponents who provide a push for his troops without completely overwhelming the northern Ontario visitors.
"Baseball is funny, it's such a geographical sport," he added. "The further south you go in the States, the better the baseball. That's kind of how we gauge it." A few weeks earlier in August, coach Jean-Gilles Larocque and the 18U lads wrapped up their summer schedule, taking part in the U18 provincials in Burlington.
The team managed to squeeze an 8-0 win over Leaside between losses at the hands of both Vaughan and Mississauga North, as the Etobicoke Rangers proved to be the class of the field, swamping the Stouffville Yankees in the championship final.
"We didn't score enough runs and obviously, that didn't help," said Larocque, who was also handcuffed on the pitching side of the equation with rotation ace Joe Guzzo dealing with some shoulder issues.
"But the guys were engaged. I was OK with the effort, with what was happening. We just didn't capitalize at the times that we had to capitalize and when you don't, they come back and score one or two, each inning, and our guys are trying to hit a five-run home run, playing outside of themselves."
"Pitchers start trying to strike everyone out. It just kind of snowballs and changes the whole dynamic of the game."
In terms of individual performances, Larocque was most pleased with the pitching performance of Josh MacNeil, in the win, with Chris Benoit mopping things up at the end, while Carter McGee paced the Sudbury attack.
"He (McGee) didn't just have a day, he had a weekend," said Larocque. Evaluating the season as a whole, the owner of The Baseball Academy suggested that while injuries typically play a part in each and every summer, they simply took a larger toll than usual in 2019.
"We had to ask guys to step into situations that they were not necessarily comfortable with," admitted Larocque. The 2019 16U Voyageurs graduated their entire roster, but with the team comprised of a mix of local and Barrie talent this year, Larocque suggested that he is likely to retain only a small handful of the out of town talent as he assembles the 18U squad for 2020.
"It will be a different dynamic next year," said Larocque, as the annual baseball cycle, in Sudbury, starts all over again.
