Warhawks headed to fall ball playoffs

With the regular season for fall ball baseball now done, the U18 Kahnawake Warhawks are hoping their good season on the field will translate into the playoffs - if they can get the manpower they need to do so.

“I was expecting us to have a good, deep run in the playoffs, but now I’m missing four players: three are on vacation and one’s injured,” said Warhawks head coach Jesse Lahache, who said he is now down to seven regular players.

While it is possible to play shorthanded in the regular season, a minimum of nine is needed to play in the playoffs per the Lac St. Louis (LSL) baseball rules, otherwise the team is forced to forfeit. That includes if a player’s injury or ejection brings a team to fewer than nine players.

Lahache said he has been trying to contact players from other associations to come play with the Warhawks, but it has been difficult to find enough players to fill out a lineup for all the games.

Further complicating matters is the fact that substitute players are not allowed to play more than one game, and because there were no U15 teams in Kahnawake this year, they cannot call up any local players that could have played because they were not registered in the LSL during the summer.

Lahache said that his roster construction is usually done to maximize the number of players available throughout the fall ball season, avoiding players who may be unavailable due to hockey or football.

“But this year, I didn’t know. And you can’t prevent injuries,” said Lahache.

He said that he has enough players for their first of two placement games, which will have been played Thursday, after The Eastern Door’s publishing deadline, against the St. Lazare Mustangs Red.

They have a second game the next night against the other team in their division, the Presqu’ile Pirates, at 6:30 p.m. at the Dorion Gardens ballfield in Vaudreuil-Dorion.

The top two teams in each of the two divisions will play in the semifinals on Saturday, which will be taking place on the field next to the Kahnawake Sports Complex, no matter who those teams are.

“If we make it to the semifinals, I would love to have a bunch of people from town coming out here,” said Lahache.

He said that if he can get players for all the games, they have a pretty good chance of making it there thanks to their strong play. They went 6-3-1 during the compressed 10-week season.

“Maybe two out of our three losses were just off days for us. We made mental errors and stupid errors that we didn’t make all year long,” said Lahache.

“They just need to continue doing what they’ve been doing. They’ve been playing great baseball and not giving up.”

Part of that has been the versatility of the players on defense, where many of them have been given the opportunity to play different positions on the diamond during the regular season.

With the season on the line, Lahache said now they’ll be playing set positions, but the ability to plug in players anywhere, especially with a short bench, is very beneficial.

“They’re all capable of playing. They’re all very talented kids,” said Lahache.

“Keep playing, and don’t look for excuses. Make your own outcome.”

[email protected]