During the winter months, Strathclair’s Conor Geekie is all about hockey. His success on the ice led to him being drafted second overall by the Winnipeg ICE back in May. He then signed his first ever Standard Player Agreement on May 31.
During the summer, although he still focuses plenty of time on hockey, Conor picks up a baseball glove and laces up his cleats to play another game he excels at.
Over the weekend, the 15-year-old played with Strathclair at the 15U Provincial Championships in Brandon. A 3-1 round-robin record earned the club a semi-final berth against the top-ranked Pool B team, Swan Valley. Strathclair came out swinging, and they were sharp on the mound and defensively in a big 11-0 win.
That meant only one team remained in their way of winning a provincial title, and that team was Rock Lake.
Strathclair had a 3-2 lead in the fourth, but Rock Lake scored twice to take a 4-3 lead. After tying it up in the sixth, Strathclair decided it was time to take over. They scored four times in the seventh and shut down Rock Lake to earn an 8-4 win and a provincial title.
“It was a pretty cool feeling to win. We had a couple of kids that have never played baseball before. It was their first kick at the cat and to pull off a title, it’s pretty sweet,” said Geekie.
“Some kids were pretty nervous as the game went on,” he added. “We made some errors, but we never got down on ourselves. We just stayed as positive as we could, and we turned it on in the seventh.”
Conor reached base all three times in the finals and drove in two runs.
The win gives Conor three provincial titles to his name. He also won with Strathclair when he was 11 and 13.
Conor will now prepare for the 15U AAA provincials from August 2-4 in Winnipeg. He’ll play on Team Midwest. With three weeks until that event, Geekie is feeling good.
“We have a pretty special group. We’ve won the past two tournaments that we’ve played in,” added Geekie. “We all get along really well, and we know our roles. We’re hoping to bring a title home, that’s for sure.”
Less than two weeks after that event, Conor is heading to Swift Current. He’s playing with the 16U Team Manitoba men’s baseball team as they take part in the Western Canada Summer Games. The team will play British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.
“I’m really excited to play with the team. It’s pretty cool that I’m one of the underage players, that’s a neat fact,” said Geekie. “It’s going to be a really challenging tournament, but our team should stack up pretty well.”
As soon as Conor gets back from Swift Current, he will put his focus solely on preparing for his first Winnipeg ICE main camp, which is slated for late August.
Even though his mind is mostly on baseball right now, Geekie is still training for what’s coming up in the fall.
“Yeah, of course. I’m shooting pucks and getting on the ice as much as I can,” said Geekie. “I plan on getting to Winnipeg as much as I can. Training is huge for me. I’m really excited to get things going with the ICE, so I have to be ready for late August.”
