What a season for the White Rock Tritons.
As the British Columbia Premier Baseball League's Senior U18 Tritons team prepares for playoffs in Whalley this weekend, head coach Tyler Lawson took the time to reflect on their regular season.
Having gone from sixth in the BCPBL standings in mid-season, to fourth place by the end of June, the senior squad won their last 14 games of the regular season – including an amazing no-hitter win – to snag the second-place spot, just behind Langley Blaze.
Lawson said it took a lot of hard work for the squad to get where they are now.
"(We) started in the fall, carried over into the winter, and had to learn some lessons in April and May to get to this point," he said. "It’s a talented group and we expected to get to this point. It was an up-and-down year with lots of adversity, but it made us stronger and better. We found our game in June and just ran with it," he said.
"We knew we were this team, we just had to find a way to be consistent with it. I'm extremely proud of them for what they accomplished this regular season."
With the championship playoffs scheduled to start Thursday (July 18 to 21) at the Whalley Chiefs' home field in Surrey, Lawson is confident his team is set and primed to "just leave it all out on the field."
"We’re prepared, we’re ready. Now it’s time for them to go out there and enjoy the moment. It’s hard to know what will happen in the playoffs, so for me, it’s a simple game-by-game approach," he explained.
While he and the team are confident, he also knows that anything can happen in playoffs.
"You expect to see everyone at their best. It’s an emotional time – there’ll be highs and lows – we’ll see who battles with the adversity the best."
He's also proud of how the team's hard work all season paid off at the end.
"Winning 14 consecutive games is a hard feat in any sport, but especially baseball. I'm just proud they were able to wrap up the season winning 14 consecutive games to grab second. I don’t think many people saw that coming."
