After a spectacular regular season in 2015, finishing at 31-13 and second place overall in the sa国际传媒 Premier Baseball League, the Victoria Eagles set out on the 2016 campaign with a similar goal of reaching the final four.
It may be a tall order with a younger group, but one manager Anthony Pluta will aspire to in the 12-team league, which was won in 2015 by the North Shore Twins at Royal Athletic Park in Victoria last fall.
The Twins also finished first overall in the regular season at 34-10, three games above the Eagles, who open play today against the visiting Parksville Royals with a doubleheader at noon and 2:30 p.m. at Lambrick Park.
Pluta will be without three of his returning veterans in Fynn Chester, Kobe Morris and Tyler Duncan who are all attending the Best of the West tournament with other teams. Kieran Waters also has a fractured thumb to start the season.
鈥淲e鈥檒l be short, but it鈥檚 a good thing. We took a smaller roster this year so there will be a lot more juniors that we鈥檙e going to call up. We鈥檒l be breaking them in real early,鈥� said Pluta, who will coach at the sa国际传媒 Summer Games in July.
鈥淲e鈥檙e a young, young team and I just hope we compete, play hard and that none of the kids tuck their tails when it comes to playing up. A lot of these kids this weekend are going straight from bantam to premier so we鈥檒l see how it goes.鈥�
The Eagles, who won the BCPBL championship in 2013, will eventually feature a starting pitching staff made up mostly of Grade 12s, except for Chester, who is coming off a sensational season as a Grade 10 last year, finishing 11-0.
鈥淚t鈥檒l be tough to live up to that, but I hope he can do it,鈥� said Pluta, who will hand the ball to three-year veteran Martin Eckard for Game 1 before going to Jacob Potter in Game 2. On Sunday, the Eagles venture to Abbotsford where Justice Carter and Stephen Wade take the mound in a doubleheader.
Wade is a lefty who came out of the bullpen last year and is headed to New Mexico Junior College in the fall.
Eckard started seven games last regular season and finished 4-2.
鈥淭his year we鈥檙e definitely looking at a lot of new talent and hoping that we can play really well and use those new players, along with a lot of returning guys, and hopefully we can see everyone doing well again and continuing that development,鈥� said Eckard, who just turned 18.
鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing ourselves, hopefully, finishing high, proving that we can still win a lot of games despite losing a lot of seniors,鈥� added the six-foot-two, 195-pound Lambrick Park student, who isn't too concerned about missing veterans for opening weekend.
鈥淔irst games are always about getting the rust off anyway and if we can get the new guys knocking it off now, it will only help us in the end.鈥�
Eckard, Morris, Duncan, Wade, Potter, Waters, Chester and Dan Rockwell (who is coming off ankle surgery) are all veterans on the club.
鈥淲e have a lot of junior kids who were around last season, so that helps,鈥� said Pluta, who wants to set attainable goals. 鈥淲e always want to shoot for that [final four]. We鈥檝e got some really good Grade 10s who can come in and be successful right away. That鈥檚 what we鈥檙e going to rely on. If they do well, then we鈥檒l be really good. If they don鈥檛 then we鈥檒l struggle a bit.鈥�
EXTRA INNINGS: The Eagles and Gordon Head baseball will have opening ceremonies at 11 a.m. with the legendary Bob Burrows tossing out the first pitch.
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