The race to the finish is heating up in the Western Canadian Baseball League.
The WCBL’s West Division has three teams — the Sylvan Lake Gulls, Okotoks Dawgs and Lethbridge Bulls — over the 32-win mark and separated by just 4.5 games with playoff positioning on the line entering the final week of the regular season.
“We want to put ourselves in the best position to win the division and, if not, finish second, but ultimately winning the division is our key,” said Dawgs manager Lou Pote. “All we can control is trying to win every game leading up to the playoffs and be healthy and playing our best baseball wherever that is and whatever seed that may be.”
The Dawgs and Bulls meet three times during over the final seven days with Okotoks owning a two-game lead for second spot in the West. Both teams are chasing the Sylvan Lake Gulls, who own a 2.5-game edge on Okotoks.
Okotoks, two-time defending champions, has finished with the best record in the WCBL for the past three seasons.
“Rivalries are good, we didn’t play our best baseball against (the Bulls) and they played better than we did,” Pote added. “Hopefully we can turn the corner here and have a couple of statement games where we get that confidence back and we’re ready to roll with whoever we play in the first round.”
The Dawgs (35-14) went 4-2 during its Saskatchewan trek last week.
Okotoks swept a two-game set with the Weyburn Beavers, split its two games in Regina and picked up a win and a loss, both 5-2 results, in its first-ever meetings with the Saskatoon Berries.
“Fort Mac was really only our other trip where we stayed over for a couple of days,” the coach said. “This was a good break to get away, be around each other, take a step back from being at home so much.
“You get a lot of team time when you go on those trips so that was long overdue and hopefully it sets us up for the next couple of weeks.”
Alejandro Cazorla, a star outfielder over the past three seasons with the Dawgs, returned to the lineup full-time during the road trip and hit his first home run of the season in the win over the Berries.
“He’s a Dawg, he’s been a Dawg since he was in high school,” Pote said. “We had the opportunity to bring him back and it was a no-brainer for us. He’s been a big part of the championships the past couple of years.
“He’s that leader, he’s going to play really good defence, give us another threat on the bases and be another guy that can do some damage in the order.”
The homestand starts Tuesday, July 30 versus the Bulls, followed by two in a row versus the visiting Fort McMurray Giants on July 31-Aug. 1. A stop in Brooks on Aug. 2 is followed by the reverse fixture back in Okotoks the following night.
Okotoks is home to the Bulls on Aug. 4 at 2 p.m. and then concludes the regular season on Aug. 5 in Lethbridge.
The Sunday contest is the Dawgs’ annual Breast Cancer Awareness Game in which limited edition pink player jerseys are auctioned off during the game.
The Dawgs have raised nearly $500,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society through 17 years of holding the event.
The first-round of the WCBL playoffs are best-of-three series and will run from Aug. 7-9.
The WCBL announced on Monday it surpassed its attendance record in a season, with totals soaring above the previous benchmark of 305,425 fans over the 2023 campaign. Okotoks has averaged 4,716 fans at its home games this summer.
Go to dawgsbaseball.ca for the latest schedule information.
