NUTANA, SK.  Saskatoon Cardinals Bantam Coordinator Mike Pavloff was surprised when he picked up the phone in early March and was told that the Braves were not fielding a AAA Bantam team this year and that they were sending 5 players to tryout for the Cardinals AAA Bantam team.  However, after the initial shock, Pavloff rolled up his sleeves and got to work notifying players of the upcoming tryouts.  Working with the Braves zone is nothing new for the Cardinals who have sent players back in forth several time over the years.  “Our zones have a long tradition of helping each other out” stated Pavloff.  “The zones are adjacent, we overlap boundaries for hockey, football and other sports and most of our kids end up going to the same high schools (Evan Hardy, Walter Murray, Holy Cross or Aden Bowman). Also, we are the smallest zones in the City.  The A’s have close to 30 kids trying out for their Bantam team while the Jays have over 50.  With these 5 kids, we still only have less than 25 kids trying out.” 

At the end of the tryouts, two Braves stuck with the Cards, while the remaining three were sent back to the Braves zone.  Pavloff indicated that, although it is unfortunate to lose a AAA team, the extra Braves players will help to solidfy AA teams.  With the low registration numbers, we were really panicking to see if we could field a AA, team, but with the added kids we should be able to have a quality AA team.  When asked if he thought that adding the Braves players is unfair to the other zones, Pavloff stated that “To call this unfair is silly.  We are still the smallest zone in the City, and at the end of the day we added two unproven first year players.   The Cardinals may have a lot of returning players, but last year this team finished last and was the only Saskatoon team to not qualify for the Provincials. They are also the only team in the league this year that is not returning at least 2 players from the Saskatoon Selects Allstar Team.  The bottom line is that we want kids to have a place to play and we are providing this for them.”

Cardinals head coach Greg Krachuk was all smiles when asked about this season’s acquisitions. “Hey we did not go out and recruit these kids, they fell into our lap and we are happy to pick them up.  We think the players we got from the Braves will complement what we already have and help us to compete against the bigger zones”  Krawchuk indicated that the four Cardinal rookies are raw, but talented.  We got the two Cardinal kids Turner Rea and Bryce Libke (who moved into the Cardinals zone over the offseason) and the two Brave’s pickups, Ryan Olchoway and Dallen Erickson.

Coach Krawchuk offered the following evaluations of the Cardinal Rookies:

Turner Rea: is a smooth and athletic player.  He has plus speed, bat speed and a steady glove. He played with the Cardinals two years ago and we really like how he has developed.

Bryce Libke: is new to the Cardinal’s organization, but not to Coach Krawchuk.  We watched Bryce two years ago and were impressed with him then, and he is a better player now.  We felt like he was one of the most consistent guys offensively during the tryouts and he did a good job on the mound. I expect him to help with his offense, glove and pitching.

Ryan Olchoway: The guy can really pitch. He has really good pitchability and is super competitive. He can just repeat pitches and location. I saw him pitch twice during evaluations and he pitched with conviction to make the team.

Dallen Erickson: is a very versatile guy. He can help us on the mound, in the outfield, at first and hopefully catching. He has one of the best approaches on our team. I had never seen him before. This was the first time but he is very competitive and has an ability to repeat pitches. He will be a very tough left-on-left matchup.

On paper, things are looking good for the Cards.  However, games are played on the grass.  The Cards will get their first glimpse of the grass this weekend when they travel to Kamploops to compete in the Best of the West Baseball Tournament.