Jets back on the diamond

Posted on April 16, 2026 by Vauxhall Advance

By Cole Parkinson
Vauxhall Advance

The busy spring for the Vauxhall Jets continued this weekend as they lined up for a doubleheader on Saturday against the Okotoks Dawgs. With rainy weather on Sunday, the teams were only able to get in two of the four planned games. Saturday’s action saw the Jets depart for Okotoks for both games.

In game one, the Dawgs would grind out an 8-1 win despite Vauxhall having more hits. Graham Thiessen took the ball to start and gave the Jets four and a one-third innings. Six runs scored (two earned ) on two hits and four walks and the right-hander struck out one batter in his appearance. Charlie McMillan was the first man called from the bullpen and went 2.2 innings. No runs scored, and the pitcher struck out three, walked two, and allowed three hits. Cedric Leblanc finished the game on the mound with an inning of work where two runs scored (one earned) on one hit and two walks. Noah McIntosh had a pair of hits, including a double; Hudson Nikkel reached base on two singles, Rogan Rivard notched a double, and Easton Kitura and Kaz Harris each had a single in the loss.

“We went up to Okotoks, and we gave up a few unearned runs in the first inning, which kind of put us behind the eight ball, and ended up losing the game 8 to 1,” said Les McTavish, head coach of VAB. “It was a 4-1 game late, then we gave up a couple late. You know, we did out-hit them in the game and still lost, but didn’t string a lot of timely hits together and just didn’t play well enough, bottom line.”

In the second game, the Jets were unable to mount enough offence to overcome a 6-2 loss. Harris hit a double while Kitura, Rivard, McIntosh, Will Zielinski, Matt Getz, Kaden Carson, and Gerrit Vanderwal all had a hit. Calum Andersen was the starter for VAB and pitched four innings with three runs scoring (two earned) on five hits and a pair of walks. The starter also notched six strikeouts over his four innings. Noah Simpson also pitched four innings as a reliever with six strikeouts and three runs scored (two earned) on five hits and three walks.

“We had a 1-0 lead, then they tied it up, and then they hit a solo homer to put them up, and it was a good ballgame. Up in the sixth inning, we gave up a three-run homer, and we just couldn’t scrap back to get back into it. It’s a little disappointing losing two games, but at the same time, we were playing a really good team, and they outplayed us. They outpitched us, certainly, and when you’re playing good teams, you have got to be able to pitch, you have got to be able to play defence, and timely hitting, and we didn’t necessarily do that this weekend,” added McTavish.

While the teams were set to meet again on Sunday, bad weather didn’t allow for it. When it comes to getting practice in, it has been a challenge as the weather hasn’t permitted many outdoor activities yet.

“That’s the challenge right now. This past Friday was the first practice we had at Jets Stadium. Not only is that a challenge, but why it’s a challenge is that we don’t have a full indoor facility where we can go get our work in. We’ve kind of been piecemeal in practice day by day, trying to get what we can done in the high school gym or things like that. That’s certainly posed its challenges, but there’s no excuse for that. (The new facility) is going to help us moving forward. Certainly looking forward to next winter, spring, when we don’t have to deal with that part of things,” explained McTavish.

Tons of games are on the horizon for the Jets, and the coaching staff is hopeful to see the team put all three facets of the game together.

“Overall we’ve played pretty good defense. We haven’t had games where we strung them all together, but two weekends ago, we pitched them really well, and this past weekend, we didn’t pitch great. So, it kind of gets both sides of it, and I think overall there’s been positive signs in multiple different games. At the same time, we haven’t really strung all three areas together consistently enough to have a ton of success,” stated McTavish. “We’re looking forward to hopefully getting consistency on the field and getting some practice time in. That’s only gonna help us, and the challenges are in front of us. This morning (April 14), we had four players leave with the Canadian junior national team, so they’re out of town. We’re missing them, and then we have three injuries as well, so seven players down on a 22-man roster. That certainly poses its challenges, but it gives opportunity to other guys to step up and play bigger roles, and hopefully start to build forward, because we got a lot of games. We’ve got 16 games in the next 15 days,” said McTavish.

Next action scheduled for the Jets is a pair of doubleheaders in Calgary against Webber Academy this weekend. First pitch is 2pm on April 18 and noon on April 19.