Sudburians add talent to Premier Baseball League of Ontario

The Premier Baseball League of Ontario (PBLO) is enjoying an influx of Sudbury talent this summer. With league play kicking off this weekend in the loop that features a number of U16, U17 and U18 teams in and around the GTA, locals are finding themselves right in the midst of the action.

No less than four ball players from the area will spend almost every weekend, for the next few months, travelling to southern Ontario, joining forces with a pair of PBLO teams.

Left-handed pitcher Chase Davidson will suit up with the Oakville Royals U18 team, while Joey Moher, Tyson Troscinski and Ashton Roy have all found a new home with the U16 Team Ontario crew.

A 17-year-old who moved to the Sudbury area from Hamilton some four years ago, Davidson features an arsenal on the mound that includes both a two-seam and four-seam fastball, a circle change and a curve ball.

“My accuracy is good, but right now, I'm working on becoming more explosive and getting my velocity up,” said Davidson at one of the countless training sessions that he and the other three have been diligently attending with Jean-Gilles Larocque of The Baseball Academy in Sudbury.

After trying out for a Hamilton Cardinals team that folded before the start of the 2012 season, Davidson was fortunate enough to be picked up for a mid-winter Florida excursion with the Royals a few months back.

“Florida was awesome,” he said. “It was good to get out on the field early — I've never been out in March before.”

Davidson and his Oakville teammates faced some junior college competition, gearing up for a busy summer of baseball.

Same story for the remaining troika.

“If I'm going to go somewhere in baseball, I have to go south,” said 16 year-old Joey Moher.

The Bishop Carter student, who expects to split his time between the middle infield and the mound with the Team Ontario U16 squad, cites a number of reasons for the move.

“They play so many games, four every weekend, and then three more trips to tournaments in the States in July,” he said. “I have to improve my hitting, specifically hitting the curve ball. Baseball is just so much more accessible down there.”

For catcher Aston Roy, who splits his sporting pursuits with time spent playing AAA hockey, the decision to follow his dreams on the diamonds, at least temporarily, came about partially on the heels of his season on the ice.

“With the OHL draft, nothing really happened,” said Roy, who had just completed his draft-eligible minor midget year of hockey. “It hasn't been too bad, trying to balance both sports.

“I have to get back in the habit of grooving my swing instead of taking slapshots at the plate. I'm thinking about baseball right now. I'm not sure what will happen when hockey season comes.”

The entire quartet of Sudbury talent are looking to fine tune specific parts of their game over the course of the next few months.

“I have to improve my throwing, a little bit with both speed and accuracy,” Roy said. “There are throwing exercises that I can do, but mostly, it's just throwing every day and getting your arm conditioned.”

To some extent, Valley East native Tyson Troscinski might have started this ball rolling, noticed by Team Ontario scouts while attending a tryout with another team.

Looking to get into the action both as a catcher and third baseman, Troscinski did not find the tryout process all that overwhelming.

“I felt pretty comfortable after practising with the (Team Ontario) U18 team,” he said.

“It made me think I would be OK with the U16 team.”

A Grade 11 student at Bishop Carter, Troscinski already has a game plan of the work that lies ahead.

“I have to get better defensively, blocking and improving my arm strength at catcher," he said. “And it will help seeing better pitchers.”

Yet it's not the blazing fastball that provides the 16-year-old with the biggest concern.

“You can always hit speed — it's the movement that will get you,” he said.
“As a hitter, a lot of kids have trouble going the other way, staying with the curveball and not hitting over the top.”

Davidson and the Royals kicked off their season this weekend, facing both the Southern Ontario Jays and the Ontario Blue Jays U17 for two games apiece.

Roy, Moher and Troscinki will have to wait another seven days, battling the Toronto Mets in a four-game set on the weekend of May 4-5.