Contending for the championship at their annual Victoria Day Weekend Wood Bat Tournament was never a realistic goal for the Richmond City Chuckers. Getting better each game certainly was.
The hosts quickly fell out of gold medal contention at the 12-team tournament that brought many of the top Bantam AAA 15U teams in the province over five days to Blundell Park. Richmond opened with a loss to Ridge Meadows then fell to the Parkland Twins on Saturday afternoon, one of three Alberta teams that made the trek to B.C.
The Chuckers are guided by Scott Lunny who has stepped up after enjoying considerable success Richmond City Baseball’s younger age levels. He admits putting this tournament together was quite the task.
“It was a huge undertaking,” he said. “Our parents have been good and we have the support of our association as well with guys coming from other divisions to help out. But it’s really been the parents stepping up and volunteering. They have been doing some raffles and stuff to hopefully raise some money for the program too.
“I think (former head coach/GM) Alex Klenman did a really good job starting this tournament and establishing a relationship with the Alberta teams. There were in on it right away and wanted to come out here again.”
As for the Chuckers, Lunny is dealing with a rebuilding year after a 2017 season that ended with a loss in B.C. Baseball’s provincial championship game. It was that performance and Richmond City’s reputation that put his young squad in the newly formed top tier and the league tried to create more parity this season. The result is a 3-16 record heading into this week’s play and Richmond City looking beyond the final scores for progress.
“This is a very young team with not a lot of returning players,” added Lunny following the loss to Parkland. “We are happy to play games like this where we are playing against a decent team, playing the whole game and not making errors, where everybody is learning and getting better.
“Our goal is to keep the program going, keep this tournament going and keep (RCBA) having a high level community baseball program all the way through college prep.”
The West Coast Cardinals captured the tournament with 13-2 win over Cowichan on Monday afternoon. Their run to the title included a semi-final victory over the B.C. Premier Baseball League’s Bantam North Shore Twins and a quarter-final triumph over B.C. Baseball tier one rival Delta Tigers. Both by 1-0 scores.
Even with the new tiers in place, the Tigers and Cardinals are running away from the rest of the teams in their division with 16-0 and 13-1 records respectively. It has B.C. Baseball officials looking at restructuring the top 15U flight again for the 2019 season, this time creating regional teams, similar to what B.C. Hockey has done with its major midget league.
