FORT MYERS, Fla. – The sun was still inching up over the eastern horizon a little past 7 o’clock on Thursday morning, on its way to bringing light to another Fourth of July holiday on Florida’s southwest gulf coast.
The moment wasn’t lost on Okotoks Dawgs 18u Black head coach Jeff Duda, as he looked around the Clemente Field third base dugout at the Terry Park complex, and spotted one of his assistant coaches, Val Hellbobler.
“Val’s actually American; he moved up from Ohio,” Duda said. “We already wished Val a happy Fourth of July and we said we’ve got to do it for America today. Hopefully the boys will come out and take care of business, as usual.”
The Dawgs 18u Black were at Terry Park on this July 4th morning getting ready to play their sixth and final pool-play game at the Perfect Game 18u BCS National Championship; Puerto Rico-based SBO 17u was the opponent. The Dawgs presence here was noteworthy if for no other reason that their base of operations is in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada, which sits just outside of better-known Calgary.
“It’s great to play down here against some pretty good competition in really nice weather,” Dawgs 18u Black 2019 outfielder Micah McDowell told PG Thursday morning. “We’re pretty used to it now … so it’s fun – it’s really a lot of fun.”
It’s even more fun when you’re winning, and the Dawgs (6-0-0) are certainly doing that. They outscored their first five pool-play opponents by a combined 36-5 before getting past SBO 17u, 5-4, on Thursday.
“We’ve been playing really good, top-to-bottom, even with the guys coming off the bench,” McDowell said. “Our whole team could (be starters). No one’s below anybody – everyone’s the same – and we have a great coaching staff, so it keeps it fun and easy.”
There are some really top-notch prospects on this team, and their resumes speak for themselves. McDowell, for instance, is an Oregon State signee who PG ranks as the No. 433 overall prospect in the 2019 class; 2019 infielder Cesar Valero (No. 124-ranked) is another Oregon State signee.
2019s Ayden Makarus (LSU-Eunice), Ryan McFarland (Pratt CC), Branden Woods (Colby CC) and Melvin Lorenzo (Jamestown College) have signed with smaller schools.
“We’ve been playing with each other and training with each other for so long, we’ve kind of become like a family now,” Valero told PG. “We’ve been playing the whole year; we’ve bonded the whole year and we’ve really gotten used to each other.”
The Okotoks Dawgs Academy was established in 1996 and its teams – the academy fields seven of them in 13u-18u this year – make several trips south of the border into the United States each year.
Duda told PG the academy’s top teams have participated in PG events in Atlanta in the past. He felt like a trip to Southwest Florida to compete at the 18u BCS National Championship would provide an excellent opportunity for these players to gain even more exposure, especially for the 2019s that remain unsigned but also for the 2020s and 2021s who are uncommitted.
“We’ve been trying to get our players down in this neck of the woods in terms of exposure,” he said. “Everything lined up with our schedule, and the seven game guarantee, you can’t really beat that, and you’re in Florida. But the main reason for coming down here, though, is to try get our guys exposed to, hopefully, some Florida schools.”
All three coaches – Duda, Hellbobler and Tyler Hollick – played either collegiately or professionally and they’ve all spent their fair share of time in Florida. They know too well the intense summertime heat down here and they also understand that it’s a lot different from what these players are used to back home Canada.
“We didn’t know how they were going to handle it, but they’re staying on top of the hydration and eating healthy,” Duda said. “They’re definitely having a lot of fun. They’ve been going to the beach, they’ve gone to the outlet malls; a lot of parents made the trip down, so it’s been nice for them.”
Most of the players on this Okotoks Dawgs 18u Black roster were recruited to the academy, although there are about a half-dozen locals from the Calgary area included, as well. They are primarily from the province of Alberta but there are several from Saskatchewan and even one from Manitoba.
As far as school goes, a lot of them attend Foothills Composite High School, which is a public school in Okotoks, or Holy Trinity Academy, which is a Catholic faith-based school.
The prospects play the year-around and Duda said that the dates from the first of September through the end of February each year are basically “just one big tryout period.” The rosters are put together on March 1 and, since there is no high school baseball in Canada, the teams start traveling and playing games as soon as they are able.
This is a full-time job for the members of the coaching staff and they stay busy. There are a lot of hours spent on the phone trying to establish connections and build relationships with colleges in both Canada and the United States.
That can come in the form of sending out video, random emails and texts, or even making cold-calls, all done in an effort to find the players a home at the collegiate level. The Dawgs play at a lot of the top tournaments in the Pacific Northwest where they gain valuable exposure to Pac-12 programs and playing in a PG national championship tournament in Southwest Florida is simply an extension of everything else the academy does.
“More than anything, this is a good test for them as far as getting ready for the next level; this could end up being 10 games in six days,” Duda said. “When they put their minds to it and they take care of their bodies and go about their business the right way, they’re as good as anybody. It’s something we really preach a lot: control what you can control and good things will happen.”
So, just by being here with great friends and family thousands of mile from home with the Gulf of Mexico and its sandy beaches a short drive away, is it possible for these young ballplayers to treat this as a vacation?
“A little bit,” Valero said. “But for the most part, it’s more of a business trip; that’s what we call it.”
With pool-play in the rearview mirror and with the playoffs starting Friday and the championship game scheduled for Saturday morning, the Okotoks Dawgs 18u Black have certainly been taking care of business on this business trip.
McDowell told PG that coming down here and winning this PG national championship has been a goal of the team all season, and the players are intent on “showing everyone down here what Canada has to offer.”
“It makes us all want to win even more,” Valero added. “We come down here and (people) think we’re just Canadians and we don’t play baseball (because) we’re buried in the snow the whole time. We like to come down here and show them what we’ve got.”
The coaches don’t take on that “us versus them” mentality because they know the program has nothing to prove. They’re just appreciative of the opportunity they’ve been given to put a very talented and very competitive team out on the fields of Fort Myers where they can play “America’s Pastime” even on America’s birthday.
“Whether you’re in Florida or in Canada, it’s still the same game,” Duda said. “You’re still playing with a 60-foot mound, 90-foot bases, and if you take care of the baseball and throw strikes you can beat anybody.”
Happy Fourth of July, north and south of the border …