St. Clair Saints prepare to host the OCAA tournament

 

By Cade Ryan

 

The St. Clair Saints mens baseball team will be hosting the OCAA Provincial Tournament this year on their home field.

The Saints are looking for their fifth straight provincial title. The OCAA tournament starts  Oct. 20 and ends Oct. 21. There will be four games on the first day and on the second day the finalists will compete for the gold medal. All the games will be played at Lacasse Park in Tecumseh.

The Saints have a strong team this year with a record of 10-4, although, they are off to a slower start than last year when they lost only three games.

Head Coach, Dave Cooper, said he is not worried about the pressure on his team to repeat as champions.

“Playing at home is a huge advantage. You don’t feel the pressure as much, you get to sleep in your own bed and we get to play at the park that we are used to playing at, plus we have a great group of hard working guys,” said Cooper.

The Saints have a much different team than last year with 15 first-year players. Outfielder Carson Burke is one of the rookies on the team but he does not think that having a large number of new players on the team will hurt their chances of winning the OCAA.

“We have a good roster with a bunch of guys who want to win. We are all really excited to play and host the OCAAs,” said Burke.

Outfielder Austin Oulds is a second-year player who knows what it takes to win an OCAA championship. He is putting pressure on himself to perform.

“The second and third year players on this team, including myself, have to step up and play our best baseball of the season to set an example for the rookies,” said Oulds.

The team has seven more games to play before the OCAAs. They host a doubleheader with the Fanshawe Falcons on Friday, they compete against Kellogg Community College and the George Brown Huskies on Saturday and then wrap up the weekend with a doubleheader against the Seneca Sting on Sunday.