West Island baseball team devastated after season is cut short

It was shaping up to be the perfect season for Nathan Van Aelst who plays pitcher and first base. 

The West Island Royals midget A team was 13 games in without a defeat and showing no signs of slowing down, but that high came crashing down in mid-July when coaches found out they were disqualified from the regional playoffs.

"We were taking it seriously, we were taking it well. It felt like nothing was really going wrong," he said, but gradually morale started taking a hit.

"You could tell game after game, practice after practice, how the energy and the will to win was diminishing," Van Aelst said. "Our hopes we're just not as high as before."

To be eligible for playoffs and championships Baseball Quebec requires one coach per team to take part in an annual training course to keep up with best practices, but this time around there was miscommunication about when the deadline was, head coach Alain Cloutier says.

"It's a pretty good idea," he said, it's just that in past seasons the deadline was typically later in the summer.

The June 25 deadline was already two weeks past just as they were sitting down to decide which of them would be listening in, Cloutier said, saying they never got the memo.

They're not the only coaching team that was out of the loop or forgot. Another 177 teams were also disqualified from this season's regional playoffs, Baseball Quebec confirmed Friday.

Cloutier takes responsibility for what happened, but says Baseball Quebec also needs to accept mistakes were made on their end as well.

At the end of the day coaches are volunteers, and it's the kids that pay the price.

"In the past the region has been a little bit more loose in terms of enforcing that deadline to make sure that the kids are able to play, because the punishment is so severe," Cloutier said.

"The punishment should fit the crime. We didn't get one of our classes done. Meanwhile we've got everything else we need to be certified to coach and most of us have been coaching for a few years."

'What were you doing guys?'

Baseball Quebec says multiple reminders were sent out to team coaches about the deadline. A 10 day grace period was also granted, with the modules up five months ahead of then.

"Everyone was aware of what was going on," said Maxime Lamarche, the general director of the organization.

"It's sad for the kids but at the end of the day I would rather ask the coaches … What were you doing guys? What were you expecting?"

The overwhelming majority of team coaches — over 2,000 — managed to sign up for the training sessions on time despite being just as busy, Lamarche said

"If every time we let it go, what's the purpose of putting a rule in?"

Cloutier says it's not all on the coaches though.

"When they throw us coaches under the bus over this issue, and then you find out there's 178 teams across the province, that's a lot of us under that same bus, and the wheel's aren't touching the ground anymore," he said.

"At one point it's got to be a systemic issue and not just a baseball West-Island or Alain Cloutier issue."

Reflecting on the last few games of their short season, which ended 13-2, Van Aelst said it felt like they were showing up on borrowed time.

"We were robbed of an opportunity," said the player, who plans to make up for the lost time by the time he gets to CEGEP.

"We're kids."