Former Dauphin King Riley Shamray trades his hockey stick for a bat and glove each summer. He's on the Oak River Dodgers senior baseball team and they're heading to Winnipeg for the Senior AAA Provincial Championships that go down this weekend.
The tournament features the Dodgers, Elmwood, and St. Boniface. They kick off their tournament tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. against St. Boniface and they complete their round-robin at 6:00 p.m. against Elmwood
Playing in the South West league, Oak River isn't really familiar with either St. Boniface or Elmwood which adds the element of surprise.
"I mean yeah it's a little bit tough. We know everyone at the tournament is going to be very good," said Shamray. "Hopefully we can match their competition."
"We're going in with the goal of winning and hopefully we can get on a roll at the right time," he continued.
After tomorrow's play, the second-ranked team challenges the third-ranked team in the semi-finals. That game is at noon. The top-ranked team earns a berth to the finals at 3:00 p.m.
If the top team is unbeaten after tomorrow's play, they will need to be beaten twice on Sunday.
After this weekend, Riley and the Dodgers will return to regular season play in the South West league. The team is 6-4 which has them in third place in the North division.
They won their first three games of the season before suffering four straight losses. But, the Dodgers have caught fire as of late. They've won three straight games and they've scored 14 runs in two of them and 13 in the other.
The 41 runs in the past three games are eight more than they scored in the previous seven games of the season.
"We had a slow couple of weeks, but we're back on track now," added Shamray.
The team will play the 5-4 Reston Rockets on June 26. That's followed by a date with the 1-8 Elkhorn Expos on July 2 and they finish their regular season on July 3 against the 9-2 Rivers Comets. The top four teams in each division make the playoffs and Oak River is currently third.
Oak River last won a league title in the 2017 season and they're looking forward to making a push this season as well.
"For sure, we know what it takes to win because we did it a couple of years ago," said Shamray. "We have to improve on our defensive play, but I think we have what it takes."
