Dawgs lament early WMBL playoff exit
Fairy-tale endings don’t always happen in the cruel world of sports.
But what the Okotoks Dawgs did learn through a first-round playoff exit — which wrapped up Wednesday in Game 4 in Edmonton at the hands of the Edmonton Prospects — is that, every year, the Western Major Baseball League is competitive.
And the WMBL, a predominately summer college league, is unique in its demands from players.
“Part of it is coming to terms with a changing college landscape,” Dawgs managing director John Ircandia said on Thursday. “Some of the top college players play much longer now. You don’t get them until later, and when they get here, some of them have had a pretty long season. “That’s a factor.” A competitive sort, Ircandia is not in the business of making excuses. Under his watch at Seaman Stadium, the Dawgs have won three championships — three consecutive WMBL titles from 2007 to 2009 — and he’d like to bring them back to championship glory as soon as possible.
“It’s obviously disappointing. This is the third year in a row that we’ve exited in the first round of playoffs,” Ircandia said. “Of those three last years, this is the first time we finished first in the regular season and won the President’s Trophy ... to me, that’s a great accomplishment. And I also can’t say enough about the fan support — that’s part of what we want to do.
“But I do like to win, and we’ve already had some conversation about what’s missing in our recipe to take us to the next level.”
All WMBL teams face the same challenge of recruiting players at the end of their college season and convincing them to play a few extra months before returning to school.
But as well as trying to attract the top university/college talent from Canada and the U.S. to compete for the Dawgs at the palatial Seaman Stadium with their firstclass training facilities, Okotoks is focused on developing players from within their academy system.
Over the course of the season, they had six players who were still high-school age.
“That’s good news and it’s challenging news,” Ircandia said. “It’s good news that we’re going in the right direction of having locally developed products that come back for the summer and have the opportunity to play in front of our fans here. But it’s transitional in the sense that they’re still freshmen and still in high school and still young … it’s a challenge.”
The Dawgs, who finished ahead of the Prospects in the regular season standings by 11 games, were able to force a Game 4 in the bestof-five series. But after their bats finally woke up in Game 3’s 6-3 win, they fell 10-5 on Wednesday night.
They lost the first two games 7-2 and 5-2 at Seaman Stadium.
But when looking at the season scope, there were positives.
The Dawgs averaged 3,400 fans per game, including 4,228 for their final regular season game at Seaman Stadium on July 30, a 5-2 win over the Medicine Hat Mavericks. With the victory, they took first place in the Western Division and captured the President’s Cup with the top record (34-14) in the 12-team loop.
The Dawgs had five players named first team WMBL all-stars, including outfielder Brendan Rose, third-baseman Michael Gretler, first-baseman Kellen Murruffo, starting pitcher CJ Lewington and relief pitcher Anthony Baldaras. Taylor Davis, a relief pitcher, was also dubbed a second team all-star.
“Despite the early exit from the playoffs, the support has been phenomenal,” Ircandia said. “The reception of the sport remains pretty phenomenal. We had a lot of things that were very positive.”
Ircandia said he was pleased with the first-year coaching staff, including head coach Tyler Graham, who currently serves as an undergraduate assistant coach at Oregon State University, and pitching coach Andy Peterson, also out of Oregon State. “Over the course of the year, they got some better insight to how competitive the league is and the quality of players they need to win,” Ircandia said. “They wouldn’t have had that before. They have a better idea of the player that’s necessary to succeed … those are things we’re looking forward to.”