It was a good day for baseball on Saturday at the Pepsi Softball Complex the final day of the 2019 Rookie League Tournament Championships held by the Jays Care Foundation. Yukon schools played in the two-day tournament but the groundwork to the games began early in the winter.

It wasn’t Matthew Judd’s, the senior manager, programs of the Jay’s Care Foundation, first trip to the Yukon. He and some of his crew travelled to the Yukon during the winter to give the kids the tools they needed to succeed.

“This time around we have just been around for a few days,” said Judd. “The Jays Care Foundation has been partnered with Softball Yukon for the last couple years to run the rookie league program in the territory. It looks like the teams had a lot of fun so hopefully, we can do it again this year.”

The Jays Care Foundation in partnership with the Softball Yukon runs the Indigenous Rookie League program with the idea of bringing kids together from across the territory to play in baseball for development activities.

“Instead of it being a baseball program we are really focusing on the development the whole kid,” said Judd. “(We are) focusing on leadership skills, teamwork skills, communication skills.

“The way that works is we train in different schools through the year we train youth leaders to lead teams. They have been in that leadership role all winter.”

“We were here in the winter and went out to Watson Lake, out to Dawson, Haines Junction and a bunch of schools in Whitehorse. The idea is working with those older kids in Grade 7/8 to play the role of leadership and mentorship for the younger kids.”

Judd said it was neat to see the progression of all involved from the winter to the final tournament.

“Huge progression,” said Judd. “When we came in the winter we did assemblies and taster sessions. There was a lot of kids who maybe never picked up a ball or a bat or were too nervous to try a team sport.

“The program aims to just give kids the chance to find some success with baseball or softball. When you see them out on the field building their strength and skill … and you know just being resilient. When they make a mistake or when they think they haven’t done well their team cheers them on and that team has that cool team spirit that comes through.”

The culmination of the weekend ended in the championship game between Christ the King Elementary School and École Whitehorse Elementary School.

The kids’ full repertoire of skills were on display during the final. It was EWES, who managed to eke out the victory in a thrilling 7-6 final. They were up 3-2 after the first inning but CKES managed to score four in the second to go up 6-3.

The EWES bats got hot in the bottom of the second as they jumped ahead 7-6. They then did on defence holding CKES scoreless to win the game. As the final batter was thrown out at first the players tossed their gloves in the air and ran together for a team embrace.

Judd said the championship game was very entertaining and even though École Whitehorse Elementary School won the cup CKES and all participating teams can walk away happy knowing their skills improved and they left everything on the field.