By Nathan Kanter

Northwest Prairie Pirates filled with local talent

Jun 8, 2017 | 2:00 PM

There may not be a AAA baseball team in the Battlefords, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t locals contributing significantly to regional teams.

The Northwest Prairie Pirates of the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League are based out of Lloydminster and half of their roster is made up of players from communities right near or in the Battlefords.

Paul Cubbon is from North Battleford, Cooper Olson is from Maidstone, Mickenzie Sondergaard is also from Maidstone, while Dylan Bosch, Tanner Huber, Damian Lantz, Skyler Mackie, Dillion Poschenrieder, and Ethan Scherr are all from Unity.

“There hasn’t been enough ball players in Lloydminster to field a [AAA] team, but there’s been enough interest around the surrounding areas to field a team,” first-year Pirates head coach Josh Herback-South said. “As far as my understanding goes, it’s been a thing for the past four years, as long as they’ve had a AAA ball club.”

On Wednesday night, the Pirates played a double header in the Battlefords at Beaver Lions Stadium.

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Unfortunately, they dropped both games to the Saskatoon Giants and fell to 2-7 on the season.

“Last night we played 12 out of 14 innings, which wasn’t good enough to get a win,” Cubbon said, who plays catcher and was on the provincial champion AA midget Beavers last season. “The top of the 7th they scored four runs in the second game [to win 9-5] and the first game we just had two innings get away from us and they scored four runs in two innings.”

Some of the Saskatchewan representation on the team is in their first year of AAA, such as Cubbon and Sondergaard. Others, such as Lantz and Huber are in their second year, while Bosch and Olson are actually in their third.

For the first-year players, of which there are five total on this year’s Pirates team, Herback-South said there are a number of adjustments.

“One, for them it’s a much bigger committment as far as practice, game-wise and that means there is a lot more travel involved,” Herback-South said. “And the competition level is that much greater.

“They’ve done really well. It’s been a process, as any season will be but they’ve come with the right mentality to get better and to become better ball playrs and to become better teammates.”

Cubbon said the biggest adjustment has been at the plate.

“The pitches are quite a bit faster and the guys can spot it on the corners easier,” Cubbon said. “Last year was kind of just right down the middle, you can just square it up.”

Of all the Saskatchewan locals, Olson is leading the way at the plate for Pirates who have played in at least five games, with a .304 batting average. He also leads the team with seven RBI. 

Cubbon is right there as well, with a .292 average and six RBI. He went 2-for-11 in his first four games but has caught fire recently with a current four-game hitting streak during which he has gone 5-for-11.

“The coach has helped me out a lot,” Cubbon said. “He changed my swing. At the start of the year I didn’t have a good swing.”

Herback-South said the coaching staff has spent time overhauling a lot of the young player’s swings and Cubbon was no exception.

“He had what’s called a soft front side, which means a lot of his eneergy drifts out through his front leg before he actually makes contact with the baseball,” Herback-South said. “And when you do make contact, you hit it weakly… so we spent a lot of time making some adjustments with that and I think he’s seen a lot of success from that.”

Plus, as a catcher, Cubbon has to be set for 80 mile-per-hour fastballs. And curve balls. And change ups.

At the AAA level, he sees them all.

“[As a catcher] you’re always in the game,” Cubbon said. “You’re always calling pitches.”

The Pirates still have lots of time to turn things around.

Although they are 2-7, the AAA season goes until mid-July, so there are still 21 games left.

“It’s not so much how you start the season as it is how you end,” “We’ve played good baseball but we just haven’t been able to put a whole game together. There’s stretches where we would play really solid baseball and we aren’t able to carry that game into the next game. The hardest thing to do in baseball is to put a consistent team and a consistent brand of baseball on the field every night.”

The Prairie Pirates next play in Saskatoon this upcoming weekend against the Giants again and against the Diamondbacks.

They will also play a home game in Unity later in the summer, on July 12 against Swift Current.

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

@NathanKanter11