A GRUELLING travel schedule and intensive training is starting to pay off for two young Mildura athletes, who are preparing to compete among the country’s best baseballers.
Representing South Australia in the under 16s, Jake Moras, 15 and Ollie Hayes, 14, will travel to Sydney next month for the Australian Youth Championships.
To gain selection, both players were required to suit up for a South Australian Club, which meant regular car trips for domestic games, as well as for training sessions with the state team.
It was a big commitment for not only the boys, but also there families, who are heavily involved with local baseball at the Old Aerodrome ovals.
The Sunraysia Baseball League has taken a hit since the pandemic, and Jake’s father Dom Moras said it was largely due to dwindling junior numbers.
“For the young guys like Jake and Ollie that do play, senior competition has been really beneficial for their development,” he said.
“Every year juniors are falling off, which is a real struggle … it means we don’t have those numbers coming through into the senior league.
“Last year, we didn’t have an under 16 comp, we had an under 13s comp, under sevens and under tens were low.
So, we really need the juniors to come through just to help support the seniors in about five years time.
“If you don’t have any junior numbers coming through, you’re really going to struggle.”
A Treasurer of the league and president at Hawks Baseball Club, Moras said the four-team competition was unbalanced.
“Eagles and Wanderers are both really strong clubs, but Saints and Hawks are really struggling and it seems to be getting worse every year.”
Moras, who is passionate about local competition, also mentioned tapping into local cricket as an area of focus given that seasons run at different times.
“There seems to be a lot of baseballers that have gone over to play cricket but not the other way round,” he said.
“It’s always handy to get more numbers at any age level, but that’s a bit of a short-term fix because we need more juniors.”
For Jake and Ollie, more juniors at the local level would provide some benefit, but at the same time both have shown that going further is possible if you are willing to put in the work.
“It’d be good to see more kids our age give it a go, we love playing seniors, but to have some younger people around would mean more baseball,” Jake said.
The two baseballers will travel to Blacktown International Sports Park to compete in the Australian Youth Championships between January 10 and 16.
