By JOE McFARLAND

With the Baseball Alberta Elite League championship hanging in the balance, Garet Ostapchuk needed to take a deep breath.

The Parkland Twins utilityman admits stepping out of the batter’s box was a move to refocus on the moment: the score was tied 6-6 in the bottom of the eighth and teammate Dzeo McNaughton was standing on second base representing the winning run.

Ostapchuk’s goal: look for a pitch in the strike zone and drive it somewhere … anywhere.

Just keep the inning going, he told himself.

Ostapchuk found his pitch and made contact then started running, only to look back in complete shock.

“I wasn’t expecting my coach to send the guy on second to home and, honestly, when I saw him waving him home, I was freaking out,” the Spruce Grove native told Alberta Dugout Stories: The Podcast.

“When I got to first, I was just a blur of emotions. It was really crazy.”

McNaughton slid safely home and set off pandemonium as the Twins defeated the Red Deer Rangers 7-6, earning their spot in the Baseball Canada 18U National Championship in Fort McMurray in August.

RUNNING THE TABLE

Like most teams in the BAEL, this year’s edition of the Twins felt more like a family as most of the players had grown up together.

But something felt different about this particular group.

“Right from the beginning, it was a great group of guys,” Ostapchuk said. “I’ve known them pretty much my whole life and it’s just a really tight-knit group where everyone contributed and everyone improved throughout the year.”

The Twins opened the season with a convincing 27-1 victory over Fort McMurray and went onto win another nine straight games.

“All we thought about as a team is trusting one another and having the ‘next man up’ mentality,” said fellow utilityman Chase Hembling. “It didn’t matter whether it was pitching, hitting or defense, we were there for each other.”

While they didn’t match that number through the rest of the season, they were only beaten six times in 33 games, including an impressive 16-1 record on the road.

NOTHING FOR GRANTED

That mentality continued heading into the BAEL championship weekend, hosted by the Webber Wildcats.

The Twins started things off with a 16-11 win over the St. Albert Cardinals, powered by Hembling hitting for the cycle while driving in five runs.

They then rolled to a 17-4 win over the Rangers, setting up a semi-final battle with the host Wildcats, which they won 10-7, setting up a rematch with the Rangers, who shutout the Calgary Cubs 10-0 in their semi thanks to a complete game gem from Chase Lundstrom.

Ostapchuk says it was engrained in them early in the season to not take anyone lightly despite previous results.

“We spent practices just sitting down focusing on the mental side of things,” he said.

“We were able to have that resiliency to not take anything for granted and just keep pushing forward.”

SAY A LITTLE PRAYER

The Twins got out to an early 1-0 in the first inning of the final, then the two teams traded zeroes for three innings before each put up two runs in the fifth inning.

The Rangers jumped into the lead with a four-run sixth inning, highlighted by a three-run blast from infielder Owen MacDonald.

“Our coach pulled us off to the side and he was feeling the nerves too,” Ostapchuk said. “We just had to stay resilient and push through.”

After being held scoreless in the bottom of the inning and then holding the Rangers in their half of the seventh, the Twins scored three in the bottom of that inning to force extra innings.

With the Twins pitching holding the opposition down in the top of the eighth, their offense went to work, leading up to Ostapchuk’s memorable at-bat.

“It all started in the warm-up circle as I always stay to a routine and, honestly, I made a little prayer to help me through this at-bat and keep a cool head,” he recalled.

“When I got up there, it was surreal because, as a kid, I had always dreamed of being in a big moment like that to put my team in a situation where we were able to go and compete at a higher-level nationals.”

From there, it was a black-out moment of sorts for the Edmonton Collegiate Hawks commit, who says his main memory is the “big mob” running towards him in the aftermath of the winning run crossing home plate.

HOPING TO MAKE HISTORY

The Twins will now get themselves ready for the national tournament up the road in Fort McMurray from August 13-16.

Team Alberta is coming off a four-year run where they finished sixth in 2022 and 2023, won gold in 2024, and came in eighth last summer.

The Twins have high expectations of themselves heading into this year’s event.

“Playing with all my buddies is second-to-none and has always felt more like a brotherhood than just a team,” Hembling said. “We have been playing together for years now trying to achieve the goal of a national championship and finally being able to represent this association on a national stage feels pretty good.”

Will Ostapchuk have some more heroics awaiting him? Time will tell. For now, he’s soaking in the moment.

“It’s a huge honour to represent Alberta at nationals,” he said. “There’s a whole bunch of good players in Alberta and being able to compete for our province is going to be so much fun.”

They will open up pool play on opening day with games against B.C. and the host Oil Giants, before facing New Brunswick and Ontario.

Main image and others provided by Scott Savard Photography.