The Victoria Harbourcats baseball team hosted a training camp for Salt Spring Peewee and Mosquito boys teams on July 5.
The Harbourcats brought over pitchers Cade Brown, Gunnar Friend and Ethan Fox to coach the kids. The players worked on fielding techniques in the morning and moved on to batting in the afternoon. Assistant coach Curtis Pelletier was also working with local coaches to give them ideas on new ways to instruct the kids.
“We’re working with the coaches as well to get the coaches and the players on the same page,” said Pelletier. “We’re not trying to come in and change things, but to reinforce the fundamentals and basic mechanics that kids 10 years old and kids 20 years old struggle with all the same.”
The Harbourcats play in the West Coast League, a summer collegiate baseball league.
The camp was organized by Jenny Lange, a parent of one of the boys on the mosquitos team. Lange attended a Harbourcats game and training camp in the spring and inquired about having a camp on Salt Spring. The Harbourcats do have other training camps for young players throughout the year. Most of the camps are in Victoria and this was the first time the team came over to Salt Spring to coach. The event was sponsored by local businesses.
“Any kind of outreach that we can do is awesome for raising awareness of good baseball skills,” Pelletier said.
The Salt Spring teams are in the middle of their summer seasons. Tom Langdon, the coach of the mosquito team, said that his team has been learning and improving throughout the year.
“It’s an awesome opportunity for them to learn from the best,” Langdon said about the camp. “We’re having fun . . . improving every day.”
The teams are trying to qualify for provincial championships, which take place on August long weekend.
Mosquito players are ages 9-10, and peewees are 11-12.
For more on this story, see the July 11, 2018 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.
