It wasn't the finish the South Central 15U AAA squad had envisioned for their own tournament, but their season is far from over.

Coming off the provincial in St. James two weekends ago, South Central had their eyes set on winning the Western Canada 15U AAA Baseball Championship on their home turf in Winkler. It was not menat to be, however, as the team finished with a round robin record of 1 and 4.

"Generally, we played really well," said head coach Matt Giesbrecht of their play at the Western championship. "It was more or less one inning each game that was our downfall."

Despite the loss, South Central is off to Oshawa, ON this week to compete in the Baseball Canada National 15U Ray Carter Cup. South Central will represent Manitoba as a result of their provincial win.

Giesbrect is confident that the team will put a disappointing weekend of baseball behind them. "We preach resiliency. If we can do that, we should make ourselves competitive." It's a sentiment echoed by centre fielder Trenton Penner. "We can improve from this, and hopefully do better in Nationals."

The competition certainly is not going to make doing better any easier. Giesbrecht observed that many provinces send what are essentially provincial all-star teams to the Ray Carter Cup, which puts his club team at a disadvantage. However, Giesbrecht notes that the team is hungry for wins after their showing in Winkler. "We have good players that work really hard that want to make amends for what happened this past weekend."

The coach outlined the goals for improving on their performance at the Westerns. This includes playing a complete game, trying to eliminate errors, and maintain pressure on the offense without letting up. Another goal that Giesbrecht noted is to revitalize the offense that was so effective at the provincials, but fell flat in Winkler over the weekend. "If we can get our bats going, I think we'll put ourselves in good position." That combined with plenty of speed on the basepaths are what Giesbrecht identifies as the team's X-factors going into tournament action.

Three new players are joining the team as pickups for the run at Nationals. This is something that will relieve the strain on some of the South Central players who have been playing high calibre baseball for the better part of a month. The team will enjoy a couple of days off from baseball while travelling to Oshawa, before begining their round robin play on Thursday, August 23rd with two games against New Brunswick and Saskatchewan.

The Western Canada title went to BC's Langley Blaze, who pulled out an 11-0 victory over the North Winnipeg Pirates to claim the championship on Sunday evening.

See photos from this weekend's Western championship action in Winkler here: